The Express.
London, England, 1856-09-29 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29.

Tea tuts for medieval revivals is not confined to
our High Church party, or to religions affairs. The
Empress of the Foams inclines that way in regard
to her pleasures, es the EMPIROR does in his most
serious business. Sensible men and feeling women,
both in France and England, have seen with regret
the attempts of the Etienne to 'strode.* into her
new 'vestry one of the worst barbarisms of the old—
the ball•fight. Such romans as the EMPEROR has,
seems to take the turn (imprudent sad neprofitable)
of reproducing the trad►tional woys of the old sove-
reigns of Fresco. The organisation of the cease,
when the Exresose hunts, is manifestly in-
tended to put people in mind of Hard IY. ;
the Regency measure was professedly based on pro.
Indents of the old monarchy ; end every year of the
present reign puts further out of eight its original
justification—the protegee of a popular ehoios--and
mom conspicuously refers to and mimics ancient
times. In corroboration of this method, the Hwang
now introduces the barbaric spectacle of the bull-
fight. She will find that in this she haa goes a step
too far. Every child outside of Spain wonders, in
reading of bull fights, how anybody an bear such a
eight, and will hardly believe that ladies can endure
it; and the explanation of the fact that Spanish ladies
do endore it always is, that historical association eon-
aerates it. The invariable observation in seek a
ease is, that nobody in Spain or elsewhere would
think of originating such a sport in our day; but that
it still exists in Spain became all nations dislike
parting with traces of the ancient time. The
mouse was the sum that we offered five-and-twenty
years ago to Americans for the grotesque observances
of our borough festivals, before all that clue of
mummeries were swept away by the Municipal
Reform aseasurs. To introduce seek shows into
American sides now would Nino mom absurd than it
is to bring the bull-fight across the Pyrenees into
Frame, while it would be free from the reproach of
cruelty. The advertisement of the expwimeat at St.
Esprit is not calculated to enlist the sympathies oldie
gayest and most pleasure-loving of the French
people. "Twelve magnificent bulls from Navarre
are to be killed." The Etienne and bee ladies might
with their own buds make up "brilliant sad rich
masa*" for the animal., and promise the flesh,
when their torture wm over, to the poor of
Bayonne:—.ll this and more will not naturalise
tall-fights in France. Oa the great day at
St. Esprit (a suburb of Bayonne) the thief
fell fiat, in spite of the presence of crowds of
Spaniards and of the Eamon and EMPRESS, and
the careful observance of Spanish etiquette is every
particular. The EMPRESS amused the credit of
consigning the poor animals to the torture, by
throwing down the golden key which was @apposed
to lock up the bulls. Five of the animals were
killed, sad the chief matador nearly shared their
fate. He was carried out severely injured, and we
do not believe that any French person present
enjoyed seeing him trodden on and torn by the salsa
be had challenged. The people hissed, and sobbed
the boll-fighters, and the polio* and soldiery
were compelled to interfere, and disperse the assem-
blage. More than that--some of the people lay is
wait for the ball-fighters and their animals at night.
to fares away the men and kill the animals. It is clear
that the ball fight will never obtain a footing in
Framer.

Canaot florae. of France take a hist, and inter-
pret his position and prospects by natural signs of
the times like these P The world rolls on, and never
goes beck ; and all things in the world change--
wren races of animals, and much more men and
nations. It is essential to the fortunes of the
Imperial family that they should bur in mind the
auditions of the time in which they live, and sat
impose ea a modern generation 'who& Imitated
hem the old seeturies. The Moms has amused
herself with tooling the female world by reviving old
barbarisms at dress—the hoop, the tight lasing, the
ahead weight and compass of clothing, and its bar-
baric =pus.. The Burma has out the glitter of
antique menifiernos over the dark parts of his policy
which it was needful to hide. The Wises has in-
dulged her whims and love of sport as a wayward
beauty on a throne might be expected to do; and the
Harmon has laid hands on every method he could
devise for imposing on the imagination and national
pride of his people, end investing himself in the eyes
at foreign nations with the dignity derived tram hir
torioal association. But it is all as thoroughly m-
ammal with the spirit and the needs of Frame at
the preset day as the ball fights with the national
festival taste.

In the spirit of the despotic middle ages the Bit.
71101 has stretelied out big head for the crows, and
pat it on hie owe heed. He kee tried to revert to the
°eateries when there wee no prow, sad comment on
pablie affeire was impossible. He ham striven to keep
his @abject!, uninformed on all contemporary topics
but such as he chose to dispense to thew i an intimm
who were too inquiring, too outspoken, and too self.
willed for his scheme, he banished in the tree antique
fashion—without trial, and at hie 'emetics plate/we.
He has taken upon him to mows everybody's affair,
and he builds and beautifies, to maks up for meddling
and coercion. His people may not have rights and
liberties; bat they have more architectural reagnitl-
mace, more plapdaye and fetes, than they ever
bad before. Statesmen and patriots rot In
the swamps of Cayenne i but, on the other
bead, the market•women are admitted to the
cradle of the Priem Imperial. If all could go on as
the Entreitoa plans, he himself and ell the world
would forget his origin, and he would be in all eyes
like one anointed with the coneeeration of antiquity I
the Orinamme would wave over his bead, and the
Napoleonic bees would hid. themselves in making
the honey of the white lilies. Bet these things
cannot be. The conditions of the times are cheap&
and the old skim will no longer hold the Dew wine,
however careful the pitching. In the std days the
menarche of France ►uled by their &Bane* with the
people against the soblem. This wee the meet, the
source, end the substance of their power. Bat sow
the social element of the nlbissas is elieeleatetb
There remains nothing between the sovereign and
the people i and the antagonism is between thou
now that there is no oligarchy to intereept it.
The change in this one condition of itself roe•
dery absolute sovereignty an impossibility in Flues

as a permanent institution. Poverty, 00rOmeralal
'obtainment, and debt is every direction are
teaching the Damon at thin sunset that mediaeval
methods of royal munificence and ostentation cannot
be tried with impunity when the representative
institutions of a commercial age have ones been
familiar. The wealth of our tams is not laid op
in hoards, or invested in Jewels and plate and
roeleaux, which loyal subjects an poor into the
monarch's treasury. The wealth of our time is im-
plicated with commerce, and an organisation of
credit which absolutely necessitates a retribution for
all waste and pecuniary folly and wrong. Are not
these signs and tokens sufficient to warn thepartwont
Sovereign against an imitation of antique despotism
which can never noosed P If not, there ia one more
hint which may be whispered. Snob imitation is
vulgar. The most perfect nooses could not, in
this case, redeem such a method from vul-
garity. But emcees being impossible, the aping
of antiquity will be satirised by the lowest of the
canaille, as it is already mourned by all who have at
heart the dignity as well as the progress of the great
French nation. There is no saying what might have
been done for France by a thoroughly able man—
even despotic in a certain sense—who would have
ruled in harmony with the conditions of the time.
A sufficient illustration of the mischief of
the opposite wares is seen in the existence
of conspiracy, in the bottomlem gulf of alienation
which yawns between the ruler and the nation, and
In the universal expectation7of financial calamity
near at hand. There are other things than bull-
fights which had better be given up as incompatible
with the humour of Frame in the nineteenth
century.