LAST WEEK.
The speech just delivered by the English Queen at the opening of Parliament has a great advantage over the recent public addresses of the French Emperor, of the King of Prussia, and of the President of the United States. Paris is the modern Delphi, and Louis Napoleon the Sibyl who utters oracular responses, which the hearers must interpret at their peril, yet which by their double meaning baffle all human comprehension. Translate into modern French, “Cross the Mincio, and you will destroy a great kingdom,” and you have a specimen of such an “allocution” as Louis Napoleon is in the habit of addressing to the diplomatic body on the occasion of a birth-day reception, or, still more probably, upon the first of the year. Scarcely have these sentences passed his lips when the Funds and the Public Securities fall a fluttering like startled doves. If he is diffuse, Europe gives him credit for an elaborate attempt to conceal his thoughts. Our English Cromwell was great in this kind; the ruler of France, to do him but justice, more commonly affects the pithy style, yet even so he only provokes criticism the more. If he “hopes” the peace of Europe may be preserved, the hope implies a doubt; and a doubt the slaughter of half a million men. Again, on what grounds does his “hope” rest? If upon good grounds, Europe trembles. He is too frank and cordial. At the same time that he hopes for peace, and is able to assign satisfactory reasons for that belief, he is known to be rifling cannon, calling out his reserves, and putting the Empire upon a war footing.
Our great ally protests too much. He is too full of confidence and gunpowder. On the first day of the present year the oracle was concise enough. Louis Napoleon hoped for peace, on the ground that such a perfectly good understanding reigned amongst the Sovereigns of Europe. The contrary is notoriously the fact, so what becomes of the Imperial hope? It lies deep down at the bottom of Pandora’s box; but plagues, wars, and famines fly out, and brood over the surface of the earth, before we reach that meek-eyed Hope which is to prove our consolation in the midst of so much affliction. Louis Napoleon hopes for peace, and Europe is in arms.
The Royal Speech of the King of Prussia, read in the First Chamber this day week, is less enigmatical than the French oracle, yet ominous enough. Here is what the Royalty of Prussia says to his Chamber:—“We must not conceal from one another that we are perhaps approaching troublous times. In view of this probability everything depends upon the country through its representatives being united to me. I hope, I desire, and I expect this. It is thus only that we shall be strong both at home and abroad, and be able to await the future with confidence.” Were ever more dismal words uttered from a king’s mouth, or written by a king’s pen? The gloom is in the sky, the chill has passed over the landscape, and the Prussian Ruler does but give utterance to the common feeling when he speaks of the coining storm.
He talks to the representatives of his people of “troublous times,” as well he may. The four great military powers of Europe are, or rather were, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. France, with the help of England, has humbled Russia to the dust, and avenged the calamities of the retreat from Moscow. The power for aggressive warfare has departed from Russia for at least our generation. France, again, has struck Austria in her most vital point, has destroyed her military prestige, and has left her exposed to the fiery indignation of her most important province. Prussia alone is standing. The two great monarchies which should have stood by her side are humbled and hand-bound; and Prussia in 1861 is left alone to try conclusions with Louis Napoleon, as Prussia was now somewhat more than half a century ago, when Austerlitz had been just fought. The envoys who had been sent to threaten then remained to fawn, and uttered a blessing instead of a curse upon the head of the warrior who had just destroyed the power of their ally, and who was about to raise his hand and sweep them in their turn from the map of Europe. Prussia stands alone now, as she stood alone then, after that dreadful struggle.
Might one not suppose that, in the presence of such awful peril, the statesmen who direct the destinies of the Prussian kingdom would be setting their house in order, husbanding their powers, strengthening themselves by alliances, avoiding all causes of offence, and keeping the swords of their regiments sheathed until the time had arrived for drawing them in defence of the homes and landmarks of the land? In place of all this, and just at the moment that France is bristling with bayonets—that Russia is paralysed, and that Austria is devouring herself, we find that the Prussian King has delivered himself up into the hands of the reactionary party, and is threatening useless and unprovoked hostilities against a neighbouring sovereign—the King of Denmark—in a quarrel hatched up by the pedants of the German Universities. If Louis Napoleon be what many of his ill-wishers say, how he must hug himself as he marks the stupendous folly under the influence of which the Prussians—his last antagonists—are about to exhaust their strength, and to leave the road to Berlin open to the French armies, without even the trouble of a halt at Jena by the way!
It needs no great amount of political sagacity to foretell that if the Prussian regiments are once fairly engaged in the Duchies, the brunt of the struggle will fall upon them alone. Victory—if victory is to be theirs at all—will only come to them after heavy losses, and then the French armies are arrayed upon the threshold of the kingdom. Has France ceased to covet the possession of the Rhenish Provinces? Is Louis Napoleon the man to miss the opportunity when he sees an antagonist helpless at his feet? We remember to have read of one Harold, who, in former days upon the southern shore of these islands, dearly expiated a victory which he had gained on the eastern coast. The Prussian sovereign, if he engages in this foolish war, may gain a duchy and lose a kingdom amid the derision of Europe.
