The Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian Monarchy,
will on Sunday be married, morganatically, but with the Emperor's consent, to the Countess Chotek, and on Thursday a rather singular preliminary ceremony was per- formed. The Archduke took oath in presence of the Emperor and his Ministers never to make his future wife Empress, or to claim for his children by her either the succession to the throne or Archducal rank. The succession, therefore, will, in the order of nature, pass to the Archduke's brother, the Archduke Otto, or rather in all probability to his son. We dislike the transaction altogether. It is not, of course, a case of "all for love or the world well lost," for the bride- groom renounces nothing, and submits his chosen -bride to what, in European opinion, is a slur. It is true the Pope can absolve him from his oath, and he himself when Emperor from the remaining restrictions, but as there is absolutely no objection to the bride except her birth, which is as high as that of any one in Europe not Royal, the incident is only one more proof of the superb pride of pedigree which distin- guished the Hapsburgs even before they claimed descent from Charlemagne through the 'house of Lorraine. The worst of the affair from the political side is the terrible hold which it will give the Papacy not only over the future Emperor, but over his next heir. The price for the absolu- tion will be the ascendency of the Church, already the pivot of politics within Austria, and the object of greatest dread ie the kingdom of Hungary.
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