Louis Napoleon has married his pretty Spaniard, and carried her
off to St. Cloud; with flying visits to Versailles and Paris to fill up the chasms which pomp and business make in the honey- moon. Paris, on Sunday, had its dearly-beloved show. Army, and National Guard, and State functionaries, were all there ; and Holy Mother Church did not fail to play her part. Grand old Notre Dame was tricked out with gauds like the accessories" of an operahouse ballet, overlaying its Gothic architecture : bales of rich velvets, acres of gilding, myriads of was candles, swarms of bees, no end of eagles. Nothing that lavish expenditure could purchase was wanting to the perfect success of the exhibition ; nothing wanting but that which was unpurchaseable—a genuine and hearty spirit of enjoyment. The new Empress has inaugurated her reign by acts of charity, and the Emperor by a long-promised amnesty. The figures in the Moniteur announcing the amnesty throw a dismal light, from a friendly quarter, on the extent of the oppression involved in the dark deeds of December 1851. Although hundreds were said to be pardoned during the Presidential journies—especially the last through the South—yet the Government organ actually tells the world that "three thousand" are now pardoned, and that "twelve hundred" still remain in the dungeons or the colonies of France. Eugenie de Montijo has not been Empress of the French a week, and pitiless critics are already guessing at her future fate, and her influence on European politics. The fate of an Empress or a Queen of the French—who can forecast it ? Beautiful Mario Antoinette, with her " chevelure rousse " like that of Eugenie de Montijo, stepped one day from a throne to a scaffold, whereon a Da Barry and a Roland had also perished. " The good and modest wife of General Bonaparte "—the popular Yosephine—died broken- hearted and divorced. Marie Louise of Austria, from an empress became a castaway. Queen Amelia of Orleans fled for shelter to a foreign soil ; and Helen of Wurtemberg, fondly destined to ascend a throne, is, with her son, an exile, forced to sell the pic- tures collected by her husband, and an object of insulting remark to him who has seized her son's birthright. Who then can predict the future fate of the Empress Eugenie ? Her possible influence on European politics is a shadow. Louis Napoleon may be- come uxorious, and the clever mistress of witching smiles may tame and humanize him. Or she may prove an intrigante, and use her position unworthily. Or she may be without influence on important affairs—a pretty woman, but a political zero. Spain is uneasy under the yoke of her retrogressive Ministry and would-be absolute Court. Isabella has been fawning upon Louis Napoleon through the medium of presents to the Empress Eugenie ; the Madrid journals, under severe censorship, are idiotic in their
adulation. This alone would imply that the Court and the people take opposite sides, for Spaniards hate the Finch, and, the fad& of the young Empresedseraell inike atmies alf`Franbe ageinstllar countrymen. It was soma lehat giatehis.in Queen Isabella to sena the collar of the Goldenfhajpe, thatvsee_wor..05 Charles the Filth himself, tithe chief of the nation beer wharfs Francis 'the First reigled, and whom the said Charles defeated and made captive. "'The war in Montenegro grows_ more portentous every week. At present the Turks have been beaten at all points, yet they are pressing in thousands round the fastnesses of the gallant moun- taineers. Meanwhile, Austria, eagerly seizing the opportunity, sends her special Ambassador, with terms, to Constantinople ; Ban Jellachich appears at the head of an Aubtriau army of Christian Sclaves on the frontier of Bosnia, and Count Rildiger directs the marsh of a corps of Russians into the Danubian Provinces. Eu- ropean Turkey is thus in almost as much danger as Montenegro ; for neither Russia nor Austria would quietly see the Montenegrins too well beaten ; and while Austria figures in the diplomatic fore- ground, Russian bayonets shed an ominous glare on the background of the picture.
