7 SEPTEMBER 1867, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

THE Marquis de Moustier has been driven to explain the Salzburg visit. The Emperor and Empress, it seems, went to Salzburg only on a visit of condolence to Francis Joseph on the tragic fate of his brother, the Archduke Maximilian,--rather an awkward visit, we should have thought, the regrets of which might have been even more delicately expressed on paper. When you have, however unintentionally, moved the spring which brought a man to a wretched end, you are not usually the most welcome visitor to condole with his brother. If the French visit was welcome, —as would appear from the reception,—it must 'have been on grounds unconnected with the tragedy in Mexico. Indeed, the Marquis de Moustier admits that " the heads of two great

• empires could not be together in confiding intimacy for several days without naturally communicating to one another their impressions, and exchanging ideas on questions of general in- terest." However, they had not, it would seem, very much to communicate. For " the two Sovereigns had both attested by their acts and by the pacific sentiments which guide them that their Governments united could not form any other design than that of persevering in the same line of conduct as hitherto. Their conversations upon general affairs were limited to this assur- ance, which was mutually given." Vague, and scarcely reassuring. When a .third. person who was not present at an interview first explains that it " could not" have been "other than " something, and then says it was that which it was bound to be, the public are apt to believe that the actual testimony is little more than a priori inference warmed up into eager assertion.