The Express.
London, England, 1855-04-23 00:00:00

NAPOLEON 111. IN LONDON AND
BOULOONE.
Fox the last week the Farms of the Feasts
has had no sinecure of it. If the English people re-
calved him hospitably, they have repaid themselves'
by making him exhibit himself incessantly. One
day he had to receive the diplomatic circle, and visit
Guildhall in the forenoon and the opera at night.
Another he had to perambulate the Crystal Palace in
the forenoon, and exert himself at a ball in the even
ing. Two or three times every day had he to exhibit
himself to oar sight-seeing publics—eating, speaking,
sr dancing, as the case might be. And if they had
got their will, he would have crossed the country at
the heels of the Royal buckhounds in addition.
her when be returns home is it to find repose. After
a pretty rough taming and tumbling in the
Channel oa Saturday, he had to be up betimes yeo-
Wel at Bakens to attend mess, review ten thou-
sand bayweeb, and distribute honours and decors-
dons ; and finally to proceed to Paris by railway,
which capital he reached about seven p.m. There is
Dot a public performer at the Opera half so hard
worked.:
Some pseudo-philosophers may rail at all this as
idle show and waste of time. Perhaps we may
overdo, in Europe, this public exhibiting of our
ralers--ezact. too much from them in the way of self-
presentation ; yet a considerable amount of it seems
indispensable to the carrying on of government. Even
in the North American most democratic democracy,
the PRESIDENT and his lady—when he has one—are
pretty hard worked at levees and other Presidential
receptions. And a very superficial analysis of the
human mind will serve to convince say one that a
"raving for personal display is a powerful instinct in
most people, and intimately associated with the
greater number of men's active impulses. The same
instinct which makes the Indian braes paint himself,
and the warrior of a more advanced stage of
civilisation array his person in gaudy uniforms, or
bedeck himself with orders, is powerfully at work in
the minds of those who are ambitions of civil
distinction. Alen are rarely contented to do
good as legislators or public teachers, unless
they can at the same time show the world
that it is they who do it. To this we owe our
stately ceremonials, civil and ecclesiastic. And the
self-gratification of the actors in these pageants has
undeniably the advantage of impressing the multitude
more profoundly than mere abstract reasoning could
do. Show and parade are, therefore, results of a law
of nature, and in the organisation of a free and wise
government it ought to be the aim of statesmen and
legislators not to dispense with them, but to keep
them in due subordination and enlist them on the
side of rational and beneficent institutions. Popular
government would have to contend at a sad disad-
vantage against absolutism if it were to be denied the
privilege of gratifying the craving of the people for
show, and the desire of public servants to parade
themselves. It is this feature of human nature that
renders so important a question that has of late been
mooted, though u yet only in a partial and desultory
manner—the question of orders of merit. By far the
greater part of our European orders are so consti-
tuted as to strengthen the court against the people.
France alone possesses an order which whilst it is, on
the one hand, eminently adapted to link the
people to a constitutional throne, is, on the other
equally well adapted to stimulate men to aspire to
admission into it by real services to the people.
Something of the sort is much wanted in England at
paint ; in the first place to "apply a buttress to the
throne to compensate for the gradual weakening of
the aristocracy of birth ; and, in the second place, to
enable the champions et popular rights to gratify
that craving for personal distinction innate in human
nature, without deserting the cause of the people.
Such is the general reflection suggested by " a
week in the life of the Emperor of the French." A
reflection of a more limited nature, but of scarcely
Iwo prodigal importance at the present moment,
was suggested by the closing act of that week. The
review at Boulogne will be admitted by all who wit-
seemed it to have been a most imposing spectacle.
There was little of mere gaudy show about
It. There wu a simple severity—a sternly
practical expression about the serried files along
which the EMPEROR rode, distributing decorations.
Everything about them appeared to be calculated for
use, not for show. The EMPEROR and his staff were
brilliant ; a few golden eagles with gorgeous banners
dependent beneath them, appeared at intervals along
the line; bat in the dresses, arms, and accoutrements,
the esodort of the men and their efficiency in war
applaud to have been the only consideration
attended to. There was much of martial beauty'
about the display, but that resulted from the
healthy vigorous appearance of the soldiers, and
their tidiness; from the accessories of loos-
lity and weather; and from the associations con-
jured up by the spectacle. Beyond the dazzling
hedge of bayonets stretched the broad, pure waters of
the sea, beneath a cloudless sky, with a couple of
steam-frigates, decorated with flags, in the distance.
The third NAPOLEON was there—not in his bodily
presence alone, but in the thews and sinews of ten
thousand of the elite of the youth of France, skilled
in the use of their weapons, and moved as one great
machine by his volition. It was a tremendous in-
carnation of mere human power. It was witnessed
on a spot where little more than half a century ago
the powerful coast-defences, and threatening
flotillas of France, were narrowly webbed by
a mighty British fleet. Now, with the exception of
the two frigates alluded to, the sea was free from
astiamaab; the am had become a highway oonneot-
lag two united nations. In the beginning of the
esntury France and England were exhausting each
other's energies and resources in a conflict provoked
by the exorbitant claims of a worthless and effete
dynasty. In the middle of the century France and
/Inland are combined to exert their powers as the
dimples' of civilisation. Long may this entente
cordials of the nations and their governments endure ;
it augurs well for the cause of civilisation—not in
Europe only, but throughout the world.—. Daily
News.

TIE LATE ACCIDENT TO LOILD STS2IIIOPI.—We
me gratified to leers Lord Stanhope is going onus favour-
ably as meld be Impeded after his wine accident en
Thunday last, in St. Paul's Churchyard, while on ditty
with his regiment. Boon after the sad accident, a tele-
graph's message was forwarded to the Bail and emote* of
Chesterfield, at Bretbypask, Derbyshire ; and on Friday
t►e noble Me sad mutes@ sad Lady Evelyn Stanhope
come to town. Dr. Ferguson, the lemon of the regiment,
and the 'medical gentlemen called in directly after the mei.
dent, an in atteadaase on his lordship, and eengalae
hopes ere entertained of his early recovery. The fracture
was ably redneed before his lordship's removal to the Be-
gent's•park Barracks. The Queen, the Doke of Cambridge,
and a host of the nobility, sent Sr made inquiries yesterday
after the condition of the gallant yosersobleman.
The Salisbury Ammo: says that the induction of
the Bev. L. N. Humbert, formerly of St. Ohm's, South-
wark, sppoioted by the Bishop of Winchester to the Mae-
tenhip of the hospital of St. Cross, vacant by the acsepted
resignation of the Berl of Guilford, will take pleas is a
few days. The Rev. H. Holloway has addressed a lacks to
the Bishop, calling upon his lordship to talcs pressedliss
agendas Berl of °Wildfowl, wader the Chard' Dialiglias
Act, fee haring, as a beneficed clergyman (s.maw to
own allegation) within this diocese, supplied the disilmileat
with moat' to the ezteat of 8001., in the 11W MOIR Is
lad " v. lamb."