The Press.
London, England, 1855-04-21 00:00:00

" THE EMPRESS."

THE fame of the beauty of the Empress
EUGENIE had long passed beyond the shores
of France. In every city in Europe portraits
of her remarkable countenance have been
seen by admiring eyes. Cynical observers
have sometimes been heard to hint that art
could flatter, and that the charms of reality
might be heightened by the courtly limners.
Millions of English people can now, from the
evidence of their own senses, refute the un-
generous insinuation that the loveliness of the
French Empress was exaggerated by the cun-
ning hands of painting panegyrists.

On Monday the Empress appeared to par-
ticular advantage. When she landed at Dover,
her countenance was at first rather pale. It
was understood that the fatigue of travelling
had slightly discomposed her, but when the
Imperial party had reached the Bricklayer's
Arms Station her Majesty had resumed all
her native freshness, grace, and beauty. The
sight of the beaming looks around her, the
sound of the countless cheers of welcome, the
fineness of the weather, the thorough cor-
diality of the reception from the people at
large, and an exulting sense of the greatness
of the august occasion, brought a flush of
pleasure into the countenance of the Empress,
and as she drove slowly up Pall-mall her
beauty never looked more dazzling, and its
resplendent effect was hailed with universal
admiration.

It was a constant remark, that " the pictures
" had not done justice to the Empress." We
are decidedly of that opinion. The expression
of her mild blue eyes, and the sweet serenity
of her face in repose, has never been perfectly
portrayed. The artists appear to us to have
succeeded in catching only the physical
outline, and not the sentiment of her
most peculiar and distinctive style of
beauty. We admit the merits of WINTER
HALTER'S portrait, but it has the coldness of
the German school, and we can conceive what
an incomparably finer presentment of such a
face would have been given on the canvas
by REYNOLDS, or LAWRENCE, or FRANCIS GRANT.
It is rarely that so distinctive a type is seen
in female beauty as in the French Empress.
She belongs to one of the rarest of all styles,
that of the Spanish blonde. Stamped by
Nature's impress, there is an unmistakeable
evidence of blood in her refined and spiritual
face. Extremely fair, with gentle blue eyes,
and a charming natural colour, the Empress
EUGENIE possesses the additional charm of a
most expressive mouth. The classical eleva-
tion of her countenance reminds one of the
chiselled masterpieces of Grecian art. She
has more, however, of the outward and visible
signs of high Spanish race in the long and
delicately drawn features, and especially in
her noble Castilian air, so remote from aught
that is suggestive of vulgar associations.
Nor are her voice and manner the least of her
attractions. She can sustain dignity without
losing affability, and in her courtesy there is
none of the affected condescension that
wounds more than wins. Her words, gestures,
and deportment, are those of a noble lady,
of an illustrious gentlewoman, formed to
grace a throne, and cast an additional lustre
on her position.
On Thursday, the heat of the weather, and
the prolonged exertion of receiving the ac-
clamations of what we shall call the levee of
the Londoners. gave rather the appearance of
languor to the Empress. But in the evening

at the Opera her loveliness was heightened by
the attractiveness of her dress and by her
brilliant jewels. As she acknowledged the
greeting of the house, with radiant smiles, it
seemed that if ever clay was cast in an impe-
rial mould it was when Nature fashioned that
Grecian head, with its graceful neck and bust.
It is gratifying to know that her amiability is
equal to her beauty; she is adored by her
attendants ; and the words " Elle est si bonne,
" si amiable," are in the mouths of all who
know her.

We cannot close this notice of one so lofty
in station, and so highly endowed, without
recording that her Imperial Majesty's in-
fluence has been directed to raising the tone
and character of the Court of the Tuileries.
On French morality the Empress EUGENIE
has exercised a most beneficial effect, and the
moral beauty of her character, as shown by
countless acts of personal beneficence, attest
the generous heart that beats within her
bosom. That her career may continue to be
fortunate, and that every happiness public
and domestic may reward her many private
virtues, is the sincere wish of the British
people, and by none of them is it more de-
sired than by the women of England, who
can best appreciate that purity of character
of which the beautiful presence of the Em-
press EUGENIE is, in her illustrious instance,
the faithfully significant exemplar.

THE NEW INDIAN FIVE PER CENT.
LOAN.

IT is about a year since the Indian Five per
Cents. were paid off, or rather that pay-
ment was advertised in the case of holders
who preferred cash to conversion; but, as the
public were informed that the Government
had seventeen millions in its treasury available
for the operation, and as they were led to
believe that a Four per Cent. Stock was the
highest that the Government would ever
issue in future, they almost unanimously
accepted the terms offered them, and, in lieu
of their Five per Cents., received Four per
Cent. Stock of the new creation. A little
before this the Five per Cents. bad been at
112, while the Fours were at par, or a little
over, so that many lost twelve per cent. of
their capital by the conversion ; but, as the
first loss was understood as likely to be the
last, the purchasers for investment were in-
clined to make the best of their indifferent
bargain. Any man, however, who has anything
to do with the funds in India is pretty sure,
sooner or later, to repent it—unless, indeed,
he happens to be behind the scenes, and in a
position to have official knowledge of measures
in embryo, in addition to the wits that
Heaven has blessed him with. Accordingly,
the acceptors of the converted Four per Cent.
Stock have all, with those exceptions, been
completely taken in—the available seventeen
millions are proved to have been unavailable,
being merely the collected revenue at credit
required for and exhausted in the ordinary
service of the year—a new Five per Cent.
Stock has now been created for investment at
par—and the Four per Cent. Stock received
in lieu of the Five per Cent., at its conversion
last year, has sunk at once to 85, and will
probably be quoted at 80 by the time of the
departure of the ensuing mail.
Such is the mode in which the nicest opera-
tion in finance is conducted in India ; such is
the process—a process which no ingenuity
unaided by official knowledge could guard
against—by which numbers of Indian fund-
holders have lost twenty seven per cent. of
their entire capital within a twelvemonth.
Whether any men possessing official know-
ledge have gained in proportion we are unable
to say ; but, on a former occasion, it is a
matter of notoriety that large sums of money
were made by some of those who were in the
secret.
It does not, however, require the additional
stigma of being a suspected channel of mal-
versation or corruption to insure the condem-
nation of such a financial system—a system
which renders the fundholder liable to the
most sudden and arbitrary and extreme flue-

tuations, at the same time that, from the
secrecy with which the government is con-
ducted, it is utterly impossible for such
fluctuations to be guarded against or foreseen.
In England the necessity of a loan becomes
obvious to everyone long before the official
comm unication to the Bank of England ren
ders the declaration of it public; and when a
loan is resorted to it is usually concluded iu
such a fashion as to effect the least possible
disturbance in the value of the several Stocks
then existing. It would take a considerable
period of the most desperate war England
ever was engaged in to send the funds down
twenty-seven per cent.: and yet this has been
done in India within the last twelvemonth,
though, excepting the Burmese affair, the
most profound peace was universally reigning.
It is clear that under such a system the
capitalists of Europe will continue to steer
clear of the public securities of India, while to
those who have hitherto been considerable
investers—the men of moderate means invest-
ing for an income—the uncertainty of the
duration of the Stock will now act as a check
against investment. To this class of men
certainty of duration is the first object, and of
that characteristic the Stock of India is by the
late measures of Government entirely de•
prived. There remain, then, only the native
capitalists ; but to these such sudden and such
violent fluctuations must be equally injurious,
and they have, besides, of late found another
objection to investment in the Government
funds of India in the unscrupulous manner
in which money so invested has been occa-
sionally confiscated without the slightest
regard to law or equity in the proceeding.
Those who are aware of the strict faith with
which this country has acted during the pre-
sent war in reference to Russia may be
astonished to learn that there are natives of
India now in London who have been long
endeavouring in vain to prevail on the Go-
vernment to perform the common act of
justice involved in the payment to them of the
dividends on the Stock they had standing in
their names in the Company's funded debt at
the time that their country was summarily,
and we may add most unceremoniously, taken

frum them.
These are points which are surely deserving
of consideration at the hands of the Legisla-
ture of England ; and we do hope that when
the time shall arrive for a more searching
inquiry into the condition of British India
than it has yet been subjected to, an investiga-
tion into the system pursued by its present
rulers in reference to the Company's funded
debt will not be forgotten.