The ceremony of christening Louis Napoleon's little boy was a
success : a Cardinal was present, specially to clench the succes- sion of the fourth in the Napoleon dynasty ; the hymn that rose in the cathedral swelled to the shout of a thousand voices, and the Emperor held up "the Son of France," even as the first Na- poleon had held up "the King of Rome." The amusements
pleased the Parisians ; the fetes profited the shopkeepers ; even the disappointments added a zest, for if the firewerks did not last half the expected time, the money withheld went to the sufferers by the inundations: so the Emperor was united with his people in their ceremonies, in their amusements, in their calamities—in everything but their politics. But no one talks of politics now,. except "cum privilegio et auctoritate."
Italy continues to be a problem rather anxiously watched. While Austria and France are said to be counselling some more lenient rule in Rome, resisted by the reactionary Antonelli, Naples is pursuing a course of political trials and convictions on the evidence of spies ; and Austrian Tuscany is finishing off a concordat with Rome. The notion that there can be any real antagonism between Austria and Antoaelii is purely incredible : the appearance of antagonism there is as unintelligible as the continued semblance of a simultaneous alliance of the Western Powers both with Austria and with Sardinia, the meaning of which we shall one day discover.
The Austrians would seem to be urged onward by the three amnions of martinet despotism, ultra-Romanism, and Italian an- tagonism. Radetzky himself is said to protest against the fatally immutable policy of his Government; the Bishops are instigating the pliant but now exhausted Leo Than to new aggressions. on the Lutherans ; and in Northern Italy the officers of Austria are socially "sent to Coventry." The apparent difficulty of the National party in Italy is, to keep down the popular movement until its hour shall arrive.
