Several events of importance in foreign affairs have to be
posted up, although they are not of a kind to demand discussion. Lord John Russell has passed through Paris on his way to Vienna, bear- ing with him the instructions of his Government for the Conference, and learning by the way the new secessions from the Cabinet that he deserted. At Paris, Lord John must have met the Prussian special envoys, Wedel and ITsedom ; who are reported, on uncon- firmed authority, to have made some progress towards a separate treaty between their Government and the Western Powers. Doubt is thrown upon the probability of this report by the last published note of M. Manteuffel to the Prussian Minister at Vienna, express- ing the feeling of King Frederick William at the " sad and Bur- rising symptoms" in the acts of the Allies. At Paris, too, Lord John met General La Marmora, the commander of the Piedmontese contingent, who is there to complete the understanding as to mili- tary operations, and whose very presence in the Frenoh capital is a sign of joint action in the Allies. Not long since, there was a report that Naples would follow the example of Piedmont in join- ing- the alliance; but instead of doing so, she has joined the neu- trality convention between the United States and Russia,—a step which implies more in the European than in the Transatlantic Go- vernment: it is in Naples a cowardly way of avoiding alliance against Russia. And the Czar shows no signs of yielding; for in a new manifesto to his people, professing a desire for peace, but adhering to his mission of defending the rights of his coreligionists in the East, he announces the formation of the entire militia of the empire.
One event of the week belongs to the future more than to the past : it is the repeated and confident announcement that the Emperor Napoleon intends to proceed to the Crimea in person, with the Empress. The date has more than once been fixed, now standing between the 10th and 15th of March ; and persons of the suite are named. The announcement has called forth a continued cry of dissuasion, fortified by reasons so certain to have occurred to the Imperial mind, that we might suppose the dissuasion to have been the object of the announcement.
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