The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-28 00:00:00

THE Still, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 28. 1855,

THE FETE AT VERSAILLES.

, The Mon.itear of yesterday gives the following
account of the Ate at Versailles
" On Saturday night the palace of Louis XIV.
recovered, as if by magic, the splendour and life
which animated it in its best days. In our epoch
we are called upon to behold marvels which would
have appeared impassible in she greatest ages and
under the most glorious reigns. In a short time,
when the éclat of the fetes and the noise of the
cheering shall have ceased, and when time has
been given to reflect upon the bearing and signifi-
cation of all that has taken place in this full and
brilliant week, the journey and visit of her Ma-
jesty Queen Victoria to the capital of France will
be looked upon as one of those events which appear
as a dream until realised. All who witnessed that
enthusiastic reception, those manifestations of sin-
cere cordiality and deep sympathy between Sovereign
and Sovereign and nation and nation, will retain a
lasting remembrance which they will love to tell
in their old age and which marks an epoch in the
existence of individuals as well as in the history of
nations. _ .

" Versailles had donned its festive apparel to
welcome the august guests of the Emperor. The
grand court-yard of -the Chateau was as light as
day ; the imposing and severe profile of this grand
and beautiful architecture stood out in lines of fire,
and the marble statues which adorn the double
grand staircase appeared astonished at all this
bustle and movement.

" Their Majesties entered by the marble stairs,
while the invited guests entered by the Princes'
staircase. Waiting and reposing rooms, boudoirs
hung with blue damask and filled with beautiful
flowers, had been prepared for the Queen of Eng-
land and Prince Albert in the apartments once
occupied by Marie Antoinette. The Emperor and
Empress withdrew for a few moments into their
private apartments. Their Majesties then crossed
the State apartments of Louis XIV., which were
magnificently lit up, and the immense fireplaces of
which were turned into gardens of flowers or plots
of verdure.

" The gallery of the mirrors offered a most
dazzling coup At the four angles four orches-
tras have been erected, consisting of 200 artistes,
directed by Strauss and Dufresne. Flowers and
shrubs concealed the stands of the musicians, and
the harmony seemed to proceed from invisible in-
struments through a bower of dahlias, roses, and
other flowers. Garlands hung suspended from the
ceiling, and, interlaced with each other, formed the
most charming decoration. Thousands of lustres
and torches reflected in the mirrors threw streams
of light upon the rich garments of the guests, co-
vered with gold and ornamented with diamonds.
" On approaching the windows a more admirable
sight presented itself to view. The great sheet of
water was enclosed by a series of porches, in the
Renaissance style, standing out from the back-
grcund of the park in coloured wire, and joined
together by an emerald trellis-work. In the centre
a portal two-thirds larger than the rest, built like
a triumphal arch, was surmounted with a double
shield, with the arms of France and England. At
the two corners to the right and left were two
other porticoes, with the initials of their Majesties.
Under these brilliant arches the water sprang up
in jets and fell back in cascades. The two basins
formed one vast sheet of light, upon which golden
dolphins, mounted by Cupids, disported, carrying
circular torches and Venetian Lghts.
" At 10 o'clock the doors of the State apartments
were thrown openland their Majesties, followed by
the whole Court, entered the Gallery of Mirrors.
" The Queen of England leant upon the arm of
the Emperor, the Empress upon that of Prince
Albert ; the Princess Mathilde upon the arm of the
Prince of Bavaria ; the Princess Royal upon the
arm of Prince Napoleon.

the Crimea." They have truly almost worn out the
day ; and this accords with the impression which we had
been led to indolge by various signs of stress and ex-
haustion in the enemy.
If this prognostic of the future he cheering, there is in
the same brief document an allusion to the past which
must move the heart of every reader who can recognise
the bold, simple, and generous features of a heroic nature
when he sees them It is an extraordinary sentence, if
pondered with a recollection of the usual practice of
crowned heads—and, above all, in positions similar to
that in which Napoleon the Third was placed.at the emer-
gency to which he adverts. " You know, General, how
much it has grieved me to be kept away from that army
which has added new lustre to our eagles."
The effect which such an address, containing the an-
nouncements of such hopes, and that soul-stirring allu-
sion to a past and scarcely-prevented design—the effect,
we say, which this letter will produce, when read at
parade to each company of the French army before Se-
bastopol, may be conceived without any commentary on
our part. _

" Their Majesties very soon proceeded to the
balcony reserved for them, in the apartments of
Louis XV., to witness the fireworks on the sheet of
water called the Eau des Suisses, the signal for
which was given by Count Bacciocchi, First Cham-
berlain and Superintendent of the Court Displays.
200 guns were fired while the rockets and lights
were fizzing through the air, or burst in showers
of stars of different colours; and when the cloud
of smoke cleared off, and ie towers and battle-
ments of Windsor Castle appeared on the horizon,
a loud burst of applause proceeded from the spec-
tators. At this moment two orchestras, placed in
the orangery, struck up God save the Queen.'
" A platform, covered with Gobelins tapestry,
had been erected in front of the southern façade ;
the guests reached it by vast external staircases at
either end, and it allowed them to behold at their
ease the immense perspective spread before them.
"At half-past ten the Emperor opened the ball
with the Queen of England.
At eleven the Court proceeded to supper in the
theatre. Their Majesties' table was laid in the
State box, which commands a view of all the
others, li,hich were filled with ladies. Orchestra
and pit were turned into a festive hall. On all
sides-flowers, light and brilliant toilettes—every-
where an air of satisfaction, joy, and delight im-
possible to describe. It was like a glance at fairy-
! land.

We cannot leave the subject without referring to
another peculiarity in the Emperor's note—we mean the
genuineness, appositeness, and energy of the style.
Nothing in it is factitious—nothing conventional.
Neither of these blemishes, indeed, was ever to be found
in his uncle's manifestoes, and various other productions,
which, according to Lord Brougham, are the model of a
new, original, and impetuous kind of eloquence. But
they were too flamboyant, too ostentatious, in the manner
and the diction ; otherwise, they had been unim-
provable. They missed perfection, just by the want of
that Cresarlike and majestic simplicity which are visible
in all the public addresses of his successor. Read this
letter of Napoleon the Third's—or, better still, read the
manifesto after the re-establishment of the Empire—and
then read one of Mr. Gladstone's speaches, or an Ameri-
can Pre-ident's message. But who reads a President's
message all through ? Not so in the case of the brief and
vivid productions of the French Sovereign.—Morning
Post.

" Their Majesties left Versailles amid the warm-
est emonstrations of enthusiasm. After their de-
parture the ball was kept up till morning, and
during the whole of the nigh t the road was thronged
with brilliant equipages conveying back the guests
to Paris."

THE WAR, ERE CABTNET, AND THE
COUNTRY.

(From the Dispatch.)

At Exeter-hall (region of congenial cant !) a fierce lec-
ture of recommendation of peace bas been delivered. Mr.
George Thompson, as "judicious bottle-holder," sat be-
bind, to pull the wires, the pacific pugnacity of Quaker-
ism being rather at a discount. A resolution was moved
condemnatory of the war ; an amendment was hoisted on
its bask, advocating a vigorous prosecution of the cam-
paign—the amendment was hitched off and the peace
motion carried. The audience was large. The chairman
of Mr. Laing's election committee procured from his con-
stituents a declaration that they condemned his cowardly
counsels—on the member presenting himself to his con-
stituents, they' passed a resolution approving of his Par-
liamentary conduct, " while reserving their own views on
the subject of the war." Now, it is high time electors
and audiences of paid peace prosers should be assured this
sneaking and grotesque stultification will not do. The war
is the one object of real import to the condition and
destinies of the nation. In one year we have spent about
a hundred millions on its prosecution. Our honour, the

lives of hundreds of thousands of our citizens, an enor-

mous amount of treasure, and a fearful load of moral re-
sponsibility, are involved in the issue. " War," observed
Mr. Laing himself, " was an enormous evil, and it be-
hoved every man to know whether the , objects to be
gained were sufficient to justify the enormous outlay and
effusion of blood. When we are making those sacrifices
we ought to have a clear idea of what we are really
fighting for, and see how far these objects have been
attained." The speech of the member was a truculent
diatribe against the war policy—it was applauded by the
constituents to the, echo ; and the ceremony (peculiarly
Caledonian), of "claw me, claw thee," was wound up
with a bold and manful resolution that the community of
Kirkwall had their own opinions of the war—that they de-
clined to say whether• they approved of .:.Ir. Laing's or not
—but that, excepting on the only topic of any importance
or significancy whatever, about which they held no opi-
nions, they approved entirely of their member. Why this is
like Milner Gibson's joke about the Aberdeen Cabinet,
when he observed that except on the subject of politics,
they were a united Ministry. We do not want "Exeter
Hallery " to agree with us—we do not even particularly
desire that we should agree with the hyperborean sagacity
of the solan geese of Laing-dom—albeit Wick appears to
be burning down to the socket, and going out with a
strong stink of Russian tallow ; but what the country,
the press, the Ministry, have a right to demand of all
constituencies' is, that they shall make up their minds
on the one engrossing, exclusive question of the day—
that they shall leave their members in no doubt as
to their convictions—that they shall not, deliberately
and with their eyes 'open, send a man to Parliament,
to vote against, intrigue against, turn out a War
Ministry, if they themselves are in favour of the war—
that it they are in favour of peace, they will not
mislead Ministers into the idea that their member
does not represent their opinions—and that, above all,
they will not commit the execrable folly of thinking
it a matter of perfect indifference that, on a point involv-
ing the very life of the nation, it is of no consequence
whether their representative agrees with or differs from
them. Nay, we go further, and add, that it is unjust to
Austria and cruel to Russia to do so. While they are
led to hope that public opinion in England wavers on the
subject of the war—that our representative institutions
may enable corrupt members to cheat the nation out of
its character and opinions—that faction may overrule
public opinion to the effect of swindling us into a Peace
Ministry, Hapsburgh will continue to bamboozle our
treacherous plenipotentiaries, and Romanoff to assail our
armies and our fleets. If, on the other hand, the people
hold no strong conviction on the subject—if this be not
a people's and a nation's quarrel—if in short, they would
sooner submit to a paltry truce than part with a jobbing
member who prefers railway contracts and Austrian con•
cessions to the honour and interests of the country, then
let them honestly say so, and make Gladstone Prime
Minister. But let no favour of personal friendship, and
no consideration of general services, stand betwixt their
members and their duty to truth and to the country.

The Aroniteur publishes the following :—•
" The number of letters addressed to her Majesty
the Queen of England during her sojourn at St.
Cloud was so great that it. has been impossible to
reply, immediately to them all ; but they will be
answered hereafter."

NAPOLEON'S LETTER TO GENERAL

Be just, and fear not.
We nought can rue,
If England to herself be true.
On vital questions members are but delegates—on those
of war, foreign nations only know the convictions of
the country through tho votes of its members. If these
are opposed to those, at whatever sacrifice of feeling or
respect, the course of the electors is clear :

Cassio, I love thee,
But never more be officer of mine.
It is no excuse for a representative differing from his con-
stituents, that the difference is conscientious and earnest.
The deeper the source of antipathy the more energetic will
be the course of practical antagonism. It is surely not for
Mr. Laing, who has wheeled right round after a visit to
Vienna and the acceptance of an Austrian concession, to
depreciate Lord Palmerston's consistency, or to declare
his confidence in Lord John Russell just for his posses-
sion of those qualities which he has notoriously set at
nought ; having, indeed, changed oftener, inure diame-
trically, more unaccountably. and more recently than
any public man except Mr. Laing him-elf. It is, per-
haps, a work of supererogation to examine the elements
4,1 the Kirkwall speeches. When Mr. Scarth assures us
that he and those precious transatlantic Republicans who
talk so loudly of being the emancipators of king oppressed
peoples, while they are at this moment the close confede-
rates of Russia, are of opinion that we would "Lave got
as much by negotiation as in the end we might get by war,
it is enough to answer that no mere negotiation could se-
cure the ci rcumseri ption of Russian power, the humiliatinn
of the aggressive arrogance of the Czar—the demonstra-
tion, essential to the peace of Europe, that England and
France are his masters—the proof to the Russians that the
constables, the police, the bearers of the sword of the magi-
strate in Europe, are too strongforswindlers, pickpockets,
Austrian receivers, and Russian burglars. When Mr.
Laing, with easy and impudent effrontery, asserts that,
efter a single year of warfare, Russia did accept the
Four Points in principle, and that the five Plenipoten-
tiaries agreed to a resolution for the limitation of the
Russian power in the Black Sea, he at once furnishes a
triumphant justification of the war which he condemns,
and advances a proposition which is notoriously false.
The German Powers, from the beginning, negotiated
only on this principle—" Heads, Russia wins ; tails, the
Allies lose." Russia, from the beginning until now, re-
fused either to reduce her army, dismantle Sebastopol,
or diminish its navy, by a single ton or gun. Germany
declined to make that refusal a casus belli, while she
called on us to make peace with Russia, notwithstand-
ing her rejection of the conditions presented to her by
the plenipotentiaries. Because we will not degrade our
quarrel to the pettifogging quirks of a special pleader—
because we disdain to recognise the paltriness of a soul
which labels and numbers the cause of Europe, of the
human race, divides it into eighths like the stock of a
share-broker, and talks of " three and a half points"
being satisfactorily settled"—because, having been
forced into war after measureless provocation and
scarcely dignified forbearance, we will not, after
an enormous expense in men and money, give up
the contest, without any redress or equivalent,
whenever a faithless and arrogant enemy, finding
we are too many for him, chooses to mock us with
the f 4 rm of redress, without any substance of
retribution or security—a scandalous traitor to his trust,
to the people and to his country, presumes, wish match-
less effrontery, to arraign this Christian nation with the
indulgence of the worst passions, and of incurring the
awful responsibility of war for the gratification of the
combativeness of our animal nature. So may the thief
say when the the hangman peels his back to thrash idle-
ness and petty larceny out of him ; or the blond-shot
eyed parricide when, from the awful bench of public
safety, the judge orders him off to the dungeon to be
transferred to the gallows. In sorrow, far more than
in anger, do we pursue the huge State criminal of
Russia to the righteous doom of offenders against
the human race—in sorrow that wretched worm of the
dust, " drest in a little brief authority," should, by
the weakness, ignorance and barbarity of subjects,
have the power to " play such fantastic tricks before
high Heaven" as to put back the progress of Europe, and
make countless thousands mourn. But—it is written
—his doomed is sealed—the finger of Providence may be
manifestly seen pointing at the crouching victim of its
awful but infallible sentence. Let our countrymen mark
the relative condition of the belligerents. The people of
France offer to lend to their Emperor far more than he
needs or will accept to carry on the war. Their har-
vest is of unexampled abundance. We want five millions
for the Turks—thirty millions are offered, and Consols
are about 91. Our own crops are of more than average
excellence, and the pi ices of food fall. The United States
have already: gathered in a larger harvest than they ever
before secured. The cereal produce of Russia has
miserably failed. Her commerce is annihilated. Levy
after levy of her choicest population has drained her
serf-estates, and her troops have miserably perished
of disease, defeat, disaster, forced marches, and pes-
tilential encampments. She has been ignominously
thrashed in every encounter—nothing has occurred dur-
ing the whole war but failure, havoc and rout, until her
soldiers and even her officers have to be made mad with
fiery rye whisky before they can "screw their courage
to the sticking place " of a fresh encounter. Yet renewed
attacks are an obvious necessity of her desperate condi-
tion, because she daily makes her assaults at a greater
disadvantage, and very plainly, solely because, unless she
achieves immediate relief, she sees nothing before her
but submission. It is but yesterday that 3,000 attacked
a small force in our trenches and ran away in ten mi-
nutes without disabling so much as a sergeant's guard.
The garrison of Sebastopol is already reduced to half
rations, and it is whispered to us by persons who should
know, that it is not at all unlikely the enemy will actually
be starved out within a fortnight. The French are
already within 200 hundred feet of the Malakhoff
Tower, the key of the enemy's position. An enormous
destruction of warlike stores, essential to the conduct of
the war in the Crimea, has been effected in the Sea of
Azoff and along the coast of the Euxine. The experimen-
tal bombardment of Sebastopol has recommenced under
very encouraging circumstances, the vertical firing effect-
ing very serious destruction. Although the bombardment
of Sweaborg has done little injury to the fortifications,
its effect upon the enemy is really similar to the injury
which would have been inflicted on us had the whole of
the contents of the dockyards at Plymouth ann the mu-
niments in the Tower been consigned to the flames. The
victory of the Sardinians and French on the Tcheruaya
is described by General Simpson to be equal to an Alma
and Inkerman combined. The odds against the allies
were three to ono ; not fewer than 10,000 Russians
under Liprandi and their commander-in-chief have been
placed hors dc combat in one way or another ; 60,000
seasoned troops have retreated, after three hours' fiat
ing with less than 20,000, none of the latter British
above all, Italians have borne the brunt of the fight,
proved themselves equal to the best troops in the world,
proclaimed to Italy its strength, the old Roman pithanodi
spirit that still lurk beneath the supernacumbeia t mass

PL LISS,