21 JULY 1866, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

THE Moniteur of yesterday announced that the Emperor Napo-

leon and the King of Prussia had agreed to the bases of a peace, and communicated them to the Emperor of Austria. Should they be accepted, peace may be made at once ; but if, which is more probable, they are rejected, then a final battle must be fought outside Vienna, probably at Florisdorf, towards which point the Prussian armies are steadily though somewhat slowly converging. The Austrians assert that they have 400,000 men encamped around Vienna, an assertion we greatly distrust ; that the spirit of the troops is excellent, which is true only of the officers; and that the Archduke Albrecht is the equal of his father, the cele- brated Archduke Charles, which is a• sanguine guess. The Prussians certainly have not 400,000 men, but they probably _have, with their recent reinforcements, 250,000, as many as they can use, full of confidence, armed with the needle gun, per- fectly fed, and without an uneducated man in the ranks. The main army is already at Lundenburg, thirty miles from Vienna ; Prince Charles, with a second, is fifty miles behind ; and a third force, 58,000 strong, is advancing southwards through Zwickau. The great battle will probably be fought, if at all, early next week, but it is sincerely to be hoped that the Kaiser will yield in time.