The Express.
London, England, 1865-12-16 00:00:00

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

Vurtraz's TI sGaims.)
SPAIN.

MADRID, DEC. 15, Evertmo.
The Correspondencia de E.pana says that the
Queen's health continues to improve. It is there-
fore probable that her Majesty will open the
Cortes in rson.
The same journal states that the Ministers have
not yet prepared the speech from the throne.

MAURITIUS MAILS.
MARSEILLES, Dir. 15, Evunfo.
The Menageries Impdriales steamer Paine,
with the Mauritius and Rdunion mails,
arrived
here to-day at 4.30 p.m.

(BZO Med ILC PRISM
INAUGURATIONS OF THEBELGIANS. NEW KING OF
TH

BRUSSELS, D. 15, Evens°.
It has been officially announced that King
Leopold 11. will take the oath to the constitu-
tion before both Chambers at 12.30 on Sunday,
the 17th instant. At 8 a.m. the ringing
of bells and a salvo of 101 guns will
notify the solemnity. At 10.30 the general staffs
of the civic guard and army will form upon
the Boulevard d'Anvers. Thc King will be
escorted from the Palace of Laeken by
mounted civic guards, and a body of regular
cavalry. At the entrance to the capital, his
Majesty will be received and complimented by the
burgermeiater at the head of the Communal Council.
The King's entrance into Brussels will
be announced by a salvo of 101 guns.
His Majesty will follow the route taken
by the late King on the 21st of July, 1831. The
civic guard and the troops of the garrison
will be under arms in the streets through
which his Majesty passed. The entrance
to the chamber will be occupied by the
battalion of Chasseura-Bclaireure a battery of
artillery of the Brussels civic guard, and the
wounded and decorated of September. After the
oath has been taken their Majesties will return to
the palace under a salute of 101 gams.

BELGIUM.

(ROY OUR SPIXIAL CORRISPO9DZNT.)
BRUSSELS, FRIDAY.
Everything here speaks significantly of the King,
and the city is full of tokens of the ceremony of
to-morrow. "lie Roi eat wort" greets the stranger
from huge black-bordered placards the instant he
leaves the railway station, and is repeated at not
untrequent intervals on every blank wall in the
city. This is the heading to one proclamation,
while the instructions of the police as to the order
of the procession, and other matters, Ml up others.
The streets are crowded, and the shops for the
most part closed. Flags draped in crape hang
from the windows of the principal mansions—
festoons of white and black cover their balconies ;
ao one is too poor to show some sign of mourning
in his or her dress, and the entire aspect of the
place is one of quiet, decent respect, unmingled
with agitation, anxiety, or disquiet. If one may
venture to translate the bearing and demeanour of
the crowds, I would say that they betoken a calm
regret and a tranquil sorrow, which is considerably
chastened by the remembrance of the ripe age and
full honours of the king they have lost.
The large Place in front of the palace has from an
early hour this morning been kept clear by a suffi-
cient but not very numerous body of mounted
soldiers. The pavement round this and nearest
the gardens opposite the palace is open to
pedestrians, while on that next the palace itself
the people march in single file and in one con-
tinuous stream through the gates, up the staircases,
through ante-rooms, and into the chamber of
death. This is open to all comers. A few soldiers
and officers are on duty there, but manifestly more
as a guard of honour than even to regulate the
decent, reverent, and respectful crowds. These,
indeed, seem to form their own police, for in one
or two instances when an impulsive youth, in a
blouse, diverges slightly from the line of march,
his neighbour in the rear whispered gently that he
was wrong, and the blouse became penitent
and apologetic on the instant. The people
thus gam the chamber by one door, and
passing round it so sato defile before the state bed
whereon the royal corpse lies, leave by another, and
go down more staircases and again into the Place.
Such is the satisfaction derived from the sight,
that in several cases the entire business of entry
into the gates and passing slowly in order by the
soldiers and into the palace has been gone through
more than once in the day as if the minute or so in
the same room with the dead King amply compen-
sated for the time and patience requisite to attain it.
The entire spectacle is so foreign to English
habits and English ideas that it will be perhaps
better to deacnbe it without comment. To such
thinkers as find matter for cavil in our own
undertaker's frippery, who held the property,
coronet, and tin foil decorations at Lord Palmer-
ston's funeral to derogate from the sanctity of
death—and who object on principle to their de-
parted friends being made stalking horses
whereon to show off mortuary splendours, the
royal lying-in-state here would be a fritful source
of moralising. On a georgeous couch, with Since the disturbances in Jamaica the correrpon•
abundance of wax lights illuminating the amber
deem between that island aril this country has considerably
lining of its massive and crown-surmounted canopy,
learned, and people in England who have eorrdpowdanb
the dead king lies. Nothing can exceed the placid
in Jamaisa attribute it to the latter abstaitiog fns
repose of his features, or the skilful arrangement . .
writing and expressing th • • • for fear that their
of opinionsh
the:
of uniform and decorations. Dressed as a general
letters would be tampered with in passing throng
officer, with the mantle of the Order of the Garter
across his shoulders, and with a few ribbons and Jamaica posteoffiee, andbe the means of bringing the
orders on his breast, the poor lay figure looks in its writers into trouble-
calm repose like an embodied symbol of the transi- The Paris correspondent of the Independence
toriness of earthly honours, and of the emptiness Bdor says :—" Prices Napoleon is expected to arrive in
of worldly distinction save where, as in his case, Paris on the 27th or 23th. It appears quite certain that he
they have been the award of a just, an honourable, will be present at the official reception at the Tuileries on
and a useful life. Not a hair of the well remem- the tint day of the year."
bared brown wig was awry to-day, and the sta. A letter from Berlin states that the Princess
Masque pallor of the face which was matter for Royal ceased to take pint in the festivities the marriage
remark yesterday, was, strangely enough, less of the Princess Alexandrine the moment she learnt the
noticeable this morning. Whether this was due to news of the death of her great uncle King Leopold.
a skilful or an accidental alteration in the dispoe!- A Berlin letter in the Cologne Gazetk says :
tion of the wax candles, or to other causes, it is "The jewellery from the Royal Treasury worn by the
Princess Alexandrine on the evening of her weddiotday
unnecessary to ask, but the face undoubtedly bore
a faint tinge as if of life-colour, and this made the we. worth 1.500.000 thdara (5.625,000 fr.) and de only taken
resemblance to a finely modelled wax image irresiat-
out on grand occasions end with certain formalities. The
ibly striking to such observers as are unaccustomed crown called the Princesses', is only worn on one
to see the dead dressed and decorated in the habits in I „we..., that of their wedding. The necklace is
which they lived. Upon a table at the foot of the composed of diamonds varyiog is value from 20,000 to
bed were laid out such decorations and orders as 80 000 Makes (75,000 fr. to 300,000 fr.) each. The eentral
I
were not on the body—a goodly number, and cover- pendant is the famous Regent or Pitt diamond which is re
big a considerable space, while at each side of it paded ee the most manage of the Jenas
of the Prussian
were officers on guard, who, with arms presented, nrowe..
and in rigid attitude of duty, were only leas The Viceroy of Egypt has commissioned a cele-
immoveable than the dead master to whom they
I heated jeweller of Paris to make him a pair of diamond
rendered military homage for the last time.
Upon the abstract question of lying waist buckles, the price of whi oh is to amount to 2,000,000 fr.
state there must necessarily be diversity of The liberals of South Durham, yesterday, at
opinion, but upon its effect upon the present to-day Derliegtoe, entertained at dinner Mr. Pease, M.P., one
there cannot be a shadow of doubt. No word was of the members for the division, and Captain Beaumont,
spoken as with reverent pace and slow they passed who unsuccessfully contested the divides at the
gently Hera and there moving lips spoke of a last election along with Mr. Pease. Addressee were
silent prayer for the dead man's soul, and eyes delivered by the guests of the evening, and also hy Mr
which were wistful and eager—before the bed was Wentworth Braumoot, M.P., Mr. Somerset Beaumoat'
reached—were lifted heavenwards after it wan left, Mr. H. Pr" who formerly represented South Durhani
but in no case was there a spark of vulgar curiosity in
sparliament. and other
spongentlemen. Reform
and
was
or a sign of indecent haste. chief topic dwelt by the speakers,
Outside the military cordon in the Place the general confidence was expressed that a satireactory
street hawkers with biographies of the King, with measure of reform will be intmansed by Berl Russell's
portraits of him, with leaden memorial rings and government. The desire was also earnestly 'mewed that
pins at a few sous each, with coarse woodcuts of in any rearrangement of seals that may Mks plea NON of
the lying-in-state--evidently drawn by an artist the large and rapidl7.inereasiog towns of &nth Durham
of great imaginative power—were all doing a busy will have °maimed upon thus the privilege cf parliamea-
trade. So were the shops where similar articles of Lary mpresentatim.