The Express.
London, England, 1863-12-10 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(nom oua owl' comasposoatrr.)
PARIS. WEDIESDAY EVGNING.

Although the idea of the congress is given up
everywhere else in Europe, there are in Paris
people of the genus laudantes who yet prate about
it as if it were a serious thing. Over and over
again we have been told that England stood alone
in her rejection of the Emperor's " grand concep-
tion ;" and now that the "ifs" and "buts," and
1 " perhapees," which interlard the royal answers
published by the Moniteur, show conclusively that
they are all—with the exception of that of the King
of Italy—polite refusals, there are public instruc-
tors here who still chuckle over the notion of a
congress to be held " without England," and pre-
tend to believe in the realisation of such a project.
Even the Senate condescends to play the servile
part which, having regard to facts, has now be-
come ludicrous and absurd even in the vilest
journal. The Senate's address tells the Em-
peror that his proposal for a congress has
filled them with "rapture ;" and that although the
exceptional position of England may perhaps per-
mit her to be less " touched" than his Majesty by
the dangers of the status quo, yet that the " other
governments" cannot but gain by accepting his
Majesty's offer. Well, but the "other" govern-
ments do not seem to think so at all. They use,
indeed, less plain language than Lord Russell, but
the status quo (which, contrary to M. Troplong's
draft address, is more indifferent to England than
to most other powers) is just the very thing which
they all cling to. The Pope indeed wants the
status quo and a great deal more. He assumes that
when the Emperor invites him to a congress,
it must of course be his Majesty's inten-
tion not only to guarantee the maintenance
of his temporal power in Rome, but also to restore
his lost dominions in Italy, and further, to establish
all the governments of the world on the only firm
rock—a "catholic basis." The Queen of Spain,
writing from a country in which it is an unpardon-
able solecism to interpret polite words according to
the letter, speaks indeed of the pleasure which
it would give her to send a representative to the
congress "if " it shall meet, but cleverly resents
the assumption that all the Sovereigns of Europe
• were to come at the first summons to do Kota° to
' the Emperor in his own capital, by saying "if it
shall meet in Paris or elsewhere." That word else-
where conveys an unmistakable expression of her
surprise that the Emperor should have been the
. person to fix upon Paris as the locality of the con-
Igress. The Sultan,who the mendacious French press
said long ago bad positively promised to oome to
. I Paris, demands • programme—that programme
' : which the official press said at the beginning of last
: I month was impossible, and which the Constitu-

tionnel repeats this morning " cannot be given !"
Switzerland, which we were assured had joyfully
accepted the congress, does so on the express con-
dition that the majority is not to be binding if it
attempt to affect her stotua quo, and moreovercalls
loudly for the guarantee of her neutrality, of which
she has been to some, and, as she think,., a
material extent, deprived by the annexa-
tion of Savoy and Nice to France. The
minor German princes, without exception, make
their polite acceptance of the Emperor's offer
subordinate to the course which the great powers
may take, and many of them specifically call for a
'• programme." The fact is, that up to this mo-
ment not one of the great powers has accepted the
leap in the dark which the Emperor proposed to
them. Instead, therefore, of England "standing
alone," as is mendaciously represented, in her re-
fusal of the congress, it would be much more cor-
rect to say that all the other powers have ref used