NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Emperor of the French seems to have conferred a holiday on the English people wherever he went. The week has been a fes- THE Emperor of the French seems to have conferred a holiday on the English people wherever he went. The week has been a fes- tival not set down beforehand in the calendar. Work was not so absolutely suspended as it is during established festivals ; but there was more of gayety and splendour than we have been accustomed to witness within the present generation. Louis Na- poleon is well acquainted with England and its people, but he must have seen both in a new light during his progress. The programme was very simple ; and a considerable part of that which has constituted the great demonstration and show was got up spontaneously by the people themselves. A fleet was prepared
to act as a guard of honour on the passage from Calais ; the Prince Consort went to meet the Emperor and Empress at Dover ; but it :was the people that dressed the shores and cliffs of that town with crowds eager to see and to participate in giving the welcome ; it was "intelligent commercial enterprise" that converted the Lord Warden Hotel into a temporary residence of state. It was the people that filled every station on the railway with life, and lined the whole course of the transit through London. A grand recep- tion on Monday, a review on Tuesday, and an installation of the Garter on Wednesday, were matters of course during an Impe- rial visit at Windsor and the admission of the Emperor to the chivalrous Order ; but the visit to the City on Thursday became an affair of state, because the immense masses of people that were drawn to the line of the procession entailed the neces- sity of preserving order by adequate masses of police and sol- diery. For many a year nothing equal to that scene has been witnessed in this country. The funeral of the Duke of Welling- ton, with which it is constantly compared, drew perhaps equal numbers ; but the occasion was sombre, the day was cold, the career of England's hero had closed. There was no curiosity for anything but the bare witnessing of a funeral pageantry ; where- as on this occasion there was the adventurous Emperor, the lovely Empress, a brilliant day in this brilliant April, and no funereal restraint upon the holiday-making spirit of the people. The cere- mony within the Guildhall went off in a manner to satisfy even Lord Mayor Moon—it was complete. The literature of the ad- dress presented by the Corporation was neat and eloquent : the Emperor made a reply professing his deep gratitude to the Queen for this opportunity of expressing himself to the English people, and repeating sentiments that are the established political morals of the day, with a force and felicity of diction that will convert the Guildhall reply into an historical mor- cean. The state visit to the Opera late in the evening was something more than the night reflex of that day pageantry. Perhaps the streets of London have never been so densely thronged by the crowds which were entangled with each other ; and the confusion might have been serious, but for the il- luminations that at once collected and lighted up the eddying multitude. The scene within the theatre stands by itself in the recollection of all who shared in it. The stage, thronged with Volunteer performers for the occasion—the house newly decorated with white and gold—the brilliantly dressed audience, brought to its climax "in the Emperor's box, where Queen and Empress, Em- peror and Prince, looked upon the multitude that looked in tarn— formed a spectacle never before witnessed in London. The au- dience admired the stage, the stage admired the audience, in mu- tual surprise at the coup d'ceiL A visit to the Crystal Palace, where the Imperial travellers wandered with their Royal friends amid the newest fabrics, the last nicknacks, and the model mam- moths—with a concert at Buckingham Palace last night—closed the programme, and left the guests free for departure today. The visit of apoleon the Third will be associated in the memory of the Eng- lish people with one of the most unexpected and brilliant holidays that the busy metropolis has ever enjoyed.
It will no doubt be associated in history with other events. During the short residence of Napoleon at Windsor Castle there has been little obvious movement amongst the Ministerial class— so little as to be remarkable. Occasionally Lord Palmerston has been caught passing from London to Windsor; Lord Clarendon has turned up now and then. It has been observed that Napoleon was engaged in deep conversation with Prince Albert and the Duke of Cambridge : it is not to be supposed that the Duke then settled the destinies of Europe ; and Prince Albert understands our constitution too well to interfere technically in such affairs. But have these been the only conversations ? It is not probable. Other Sovereigns have visited this country, and after they went away— long after—we have discovered that something passed while they were here. There were conversations glancing at the Spanish marriages when Louis Philippe met Lord Aberdeen casually at Eu. Years after the fact, we discovered that in 1844 the Emperor of Rus- sia had left in London a memorandum glancing at " the sick man." It does not seem improbable that something should have occurred now. Other things might have been in discussion besides the Crimea or the distribution of labours in that direction. There are eventual- ities and contingencies elsewhere. An obvious subject for considera- tion might be the Rhine boundary. If Austria were doubtful, there is another boundary which would not have been discussed for the first time—the Adige. In his reply to the London Corporation, the Emperor alluded to the desire in this country and in France for abolishing slavery, and the hope of ameliorating all the countries of Europe. The words might suggest new hopes even in France that certain charities would begin at home ; and who can calculate the possible course of Napoleon the Third ? Who can presume what consequences may or may not follow a visit which certainly has not been all pageantry ?
