The telegrams have two or three times contained particulars of
a bargain made between the French Government and the Empress Eugenie, but they are always different. Now she was to receive something very like an annuity, and then a vote was to be proposed to the Assembly on her behalf, but the latest and most probable statement seems to be this. The Council of State- has decided that the Chinese Museum at Fontainebleau was the Emperor's private property, and therefore passed to her as guar- dian of her son. The Museum, accumulated during the Chinese war, is of unusual value, and the Assembly has been asked to buy it for /100,000 or /120,000 to retain it at Fontainebleau. If the Assembly assents, as it may, the Bazaine trial being still fresh, the money will be paid ; but if the Assembly refuses, the Museum will be brought over to England and sold. That is the surface of the affair, at all events, and the Empress is not much given to. transactions with her enemies. She could have saved a fortune.
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