17 OCTOBER 1868, Page 3

Many of the Continental, and more especially German, papers -will

have it that a grand plot was arrested by the Spanish explosion. -Queen Isabella was to garrison Rome, and hold Italy in check while Napoleon crossed the Rhine. At the same time, Austria -was to have called Poland to arms, and Turkey to have entered • the Principalities. It was calculated that Prussia would have been beaten, that Russia, attacked to the east and south, would have been unable to move, that the South Germans would have declared the treaties at an end, and that the old state of affairs would have -been restored. The programme may be correct, but it looks very -much like a programme of the coffee-room.