The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-13 00:00:00

T.H-E ROYAL VISIT TO PARIS.

IA Four hundred and twenty-five years have passed
since a crowned English sovereign was seen in the
city of Paris. And it was then no visit of friend.
ship, but a barren grasp at empire. That a
sovereign of England should visit the sovereign
of France in his capital is now to occur for the
first time in the annals of the two nations. Nor
can we feel surprise that an event requiring for its
fulfilment such rare coincident circumstances
should have been delayed so long.
Before the European system, no king could, with
perfect safety, trust himself to the keeping of his
brother, and English policy since has unhappily
oftener leagued us with Austria against France
than with France against Austria. The fault
bas not been confined to either side, and the best
that can now be said for the errors committed
on both is that the people of the two countries
have remained always friendly to each other.
The enmity has been between the governing and
not the governed races. Nor is it to be denieii
that the angry tone given to French and English re.
lations after our own revolution proceeded lea
from the English than the French Government.
The Bourbon race had a too natural affinity to the
weak and vicious Stuart race. The final expulsion
of the latter from the English throne was bitterly
resented, and during the century that followed
1688 no George could have visited a Louis.
A great change has now come over Europe. It
is neither Austria nor France we have any longer
cause to dread, but a new power more formidable
in its character and designs than that which either
Charles the Fifth or Louis the Fourteenth repre-
sented. Not so much, however, from the extent of
her internal and intrinsic resources, as from the
character of her barbarism and her unscrupulous
ambition, is Russia become formidable to civilised
Europe. Twenty years before the first French revo•
lution these dangers from the nature of her Govern.
meat were foretold, even by those who ridiculed the
pretences she was already setting up to a restora-
tion of the Empire of Constantine. We all know
the persevering encroachments she has since been
able to make in spite of protests as untiring.
There has hardly been a Government of any in-
fluence in Europe during the last fifty years which
has not admitted, in countless despatches and
protocols, the necessity of resisting the advance
of Russia, of putting a limit to her extending
frontier, and some check to her overweening am.
bition ; nor was this duty ever more manifest than
in 1815, when Europe exhausted with war, pre.
ferred to surrender Poland rather than re-embark
in it. Every year since that time, however, has
shown more clearly the blunder then committed.
Every year has added to the necessity for the re.
pression which it was felt must sooner or later
come. Selfishness, cowardice, dulness in the conti-
nental powers and dynasties have alone delayed it.

But England and Fance have at last stepped
forward, not simply to declare the necessity,
but to act upon it, and another seal will be set
to their resolve in next week's meeting of the
rulers of the two nations amid the crowds and fes-

.
tivities of Paris. It will be another pledge for their
unaided and unshrinking performance of the work
which to none appealed so strongly, or should have
seemed so necessary, as to the German sovereigns
and princes. That even Prussia as well as Austria
felt this, no one acquainted with the recent nego-
tiations can doubt ; but what they had sense enough
to see they have not had the courage enough to do.
If Germany had but seized the great opportunity
offered, Russia would at once have been checked
on the side of Poland as well as in her progress
seaward. Such another opportunity may not pre-
sent itself for centuries ; and history will have to
record hereafter, not that Germans wanted discern.
ment to know the yoke under which they were pass-
ing, but that they utterly wanted unity and courage
to throw it off. Meanwhile, it is possible, the field of
warlike operation may be narrowed to France and
England ; but their task will not have been per-
formed inefficiently, if it establish finally an im-
passable barrier to Russian conquest and acquisi-
tion in the Baltic and the Euxine. This they can
certainly accomplish, and they would deserve the
shame and discredit which has fallen on Austria
An d Prussia if they were content with less.
The approaching Royal visit will call forth many
historical allusions and associations, but its highest
value, we repeat, is in the additional pledge it gives
for identity of policy and feeling between the Go-
vernments and of esteem and good-will between
the countries. We have said that no such visit
nas been possible for the last century and a half,
and for the existence of anything like the same
causes of sympathy and agreement we should have to
travel back nearly to double that distance of
rime. We set up no individual comparisons
! when we say that the same kind of courtesy
could not have been so freely interchanged
hetween two sovereigns of the West since
the days of Henri Quatre and Queen Elizabeth.
I n the latter half of the sixteenth century, the
House of Austria was the swallower up of small
states, the bugbear of civilisation, the standing
mnenace to civil and religious freedom, aiming at
universal empire, and sparing neither craft, ty-
ranny, nor treasure to accomplish it. Against
.uch designs, and the power promoting them, the
sovereigns f England and France then found it
their interest to unite, and it was not the fault of
the English sovereign if the league was broken.
No one will attempt to compare the third Napo-
leon to the fourth Henry of France—the chival-
rous and gallant prince who fought his way
through a score of campaigns, and after many
hard-contested battles, to his throne. Yet Henry,
against many disadvantages, and from a heritage of
-.mall means, floated upwards amid the civil dissen-
sions of his country ; and having gained power by
siding with one party, it was siding with the other
lie retained it. He was a prudent administrator,
too ; and though no friend of liberty, he could not
bring himself tamely to see the independence of
Europe endangered. In the midst of his projects
he was cut off by the hand of an assassin, and the
policy of the great English Queen was abandoned
by her impotent and pusillanimous successors.
But the spirit of the great lives after them ; and
out of those noble objects for which Henry and
Elizabeth contended, the establishment of religi-
ous freedom and the balance of European empire,
sprang powers and princes unheard of till then,
and the house of Austria was effectually humbled
by Prussia and by Sweden.
There is but one moral taught by this, as by the
whole curreni of human history. It is that nations,
not less than individuals, should follow out un-
flinchingly the dictates of justice and honour,
should prefer these to mere expediences or pruden-
ces of the hour, and should have courage not to
shrink from whatever temporary sacrifices they
entail. To rush into war one day because there
seemed good chances of success, and to sneak out of
it the next because the knocks proved harder than
was looked for, and the victory more distant, has i
been a ,licy fraught with danger and disgrace
from tin.. 'immemorial. Such was the policy of
James the First and of Mazarin. Such was not the
policy of Elizabeth, of Richelieu, of Cromwell, or
of any great ruler of a great country.—Examiner.