The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-09-10 00:00:00

M. OLLIVIER'S EXPLANATION.

It. according to a German paper, recently gave
the following account of the circumstances under which
war was declared When the news ot the Prince of Ho-
besmotiern renunciation arrived In Paris the SI inlster. met
at the Tuileries. The matter was thoroughly discussed, and
the majority of the Cabinet determined, in consequence of
this signal satisfaction, to take a conciliatory course. The
Emperor, who, according to his custom, had till then kept
silence, rose, and tor • moment retired to a little tlistatme.
A pause ensued, and most of the Ministers also lett their
seats, in order to smoke a cigar and talk uneoustrainedly in
the ante-room. Only three stayed behind—Scots, lisurice.
Richard, and Lewd. The last was grestly excited when the
votes were taken, and exclaimed Ins desperate tone, as he
rapped his knuckles on his desk, '0 mon Dieu ! 0 own
Dieu ! • The Minister of Fine Arts stepped up to him and
Bald, ' Pray compose yourself, Atarshal ; we have to do with
the first military Power of Europe. Are you quite pre-
pared i" Are we prepwei r cried Lelseoh jamplog up like
• tiger ;• prepared as France has never icon, arid never will
he again. Believe me, my dear colleague, it my respnt for
the Emperor did not restrain me I would not hold nitle an
hour lerger.' As these last words were pronoun•sed the Em-
peror with the other Ministers returned, and even he ap-
peared more excited than the Mitisters had ever seen him,
but, as if wishing to conceal his feeling, from his Council, he
merely remarked mildly that guarantees for Os future
must also be demanded of Prussia. An hour later It was
decided that • cants bell should be made of this demand."

FALLEN }OM HIS HIGH ESTATE.

Never in our time has any event taken place which could
be compared in dramatic impressiveness with this soil en
mid stupendous fall. Even the collapse of the Empire is less
startling, leas sternly significant, than the fate of the
Emperor. For twenty years Louis Napoleon filled aspace in
the eyes of the world with which the importance of no other
man whatever cool,' prefer,' to compare. Ills political form
and butt towered up in European altairs the some huge
eagle dominating over a city. To his lightest word all the
world listened. For good or evil his 'patience and his name
were potent in every corner of the earth. Ili. nod convulsed
continents. ilis arms glittered from the Crimea to Cochin
China, from Algeria to Mexico. A signal from him, and the
dominion of the Austrian over Lombardy ts broken at
Bolf erino, and a new Italy arises on the horizon of Europe.
A whisper from him, and Maximilian of Austria rushes acr es
the ocean to found a Mexican Empire, to find a premature
grave. A wave of his hand, and Garibaldi is crushed at
Montana. What wonder that such a man should come at
last to believe himself the special favourite and spoiled child
of Invincible destiny ? Even his enemies now find it difficult
to realise the fact that he has actually fallen, that the gteat
Darius is their captive.
'The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crash; the round world
Should hate shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens.'
The whole condition of things seems changed, when Louis
Napoleon has fallen from his high estate, and dominates
Europe no more. some forty years of wandering, of obscu-
rity, of futile, almost ludicrous, enterprises. of exile. of im-
prisonment, of the world's contempt, and then twenty years
of supreme sovereignty, of splendid succees, have led him to
this. One false and fatal step, and the Emperor, who had
overshadowed France and the earth with the gloom of his
glory,' is a crushed, defeated man, worn down with failure,
broken hopes, and bodily disease; a captive in the hands of
his enemies, an object of pity to all men and all nations, even
to those whom his supremacy meet bitterly wronged, and
whom his success would never have spared."—Daily Semi.