Condescending from his traditional state, the Emperor of Aus- tria,
heir to the Emperors of Germany, has consented to visit the younger house of Hohenzollern, now the royal house of Prussia. The Imperial ingenuity has been taxed to contrive means of ex- changing symbolical courtesies with his host. Hanover and Brunswick joined the party ; and then the young Emperor was off to see his bride-expectant, the Princess Sidonia, in the paternal
house of Saxony. The Emperor of Russia was expected to cross his path somewhere. The object of these conferences is variously supposed to be, the settlement of the commercial question, the settlement of the French question, or something equally import- ant ; but "come what may," as the Emperor Francis Joseph hini- self said, the paramount object was to unite the royal houses of Northern Europe against all who may withstand them. The young Emperor took great pains to that end; lavished compli- ments, marched as a Colonel in the Prussian army, and touched his hat to the statue of Old Fritz.
"Napoleon III" pursues his plans, undaunted by these formid- able counter-preparations. His Senate may kick, as it has been doing, gently, when asked to confirm his absolute powers over funds ; but he pursues his hunting, in the Imperial uniform, at Compiegne, nnderanged by other men's agitation ; and his immense military plans continue unchecked. The newest item discerned by the public is the plan for converting the &sole Militaire--whence came the most recent declaration for the Rhine boundary—at once into a vast special garrison and a school of practical instruc- tion in ldi ' busi The resignation of Bravo Muzillo has not checked the Court plan for assimilating the Spanish throne to the Absolutist thrones in Europe. Itoneali has accepted office, and appears well disposed to continue in the course of Bravo Murillo ; perhaps with more discretion but not with more patriotism. Italy Ball suffers the almost periodical execution of capital sen- tence on prisoners for revolutionary proceedings. At the last af- fair of the kind, in Mantua, the prisoners were killed in a method of studied prolongation for their sufferings,—raised by the waist and feet to the top of a gallows, and there slowly strangled by the executioner ; the last of the five witnessing the tortures of his fel- low sufferers for an hour and a quarter.
It is satisfactory to turn from these ugly scenes to the healthier atmosphere of the West ; where President Fillmore has just issued his last message to Congress. It paints a state of increasing pros- perity, activity, and greatness in the Model Republic. The na- tional is undergoing a steady extinction. Enterprise flou- rishes in every quarter; and there is no trace of party difficulties, either in this message or in the general intelligence. In external affairs, matters are pretty much as we knew them to be before,— the Fishery question in prospect of amicable settlement ; the Lobos question settled by a handsome acknowledgment that the United States Government was " wrong "; and the Cuban question deliber- ately kept open.
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