The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-13 00:00:00

TUIE RUMOURS OF PEACE.

Tho language hold by the principal continental
journals received yesterday on the subject of peace
is very guarded, and calculated to nourish only the
most moderate expectations. The Debats says
We consider it useless to collect all the rumours that
are still in circulation in the French and foreign news-
papers about the hopes of a pacific arrangement between
the belligerent powers. On viewing more closely all the
news and all the versions published on this subject, we
can say that the question has not advanced a single step.
It would even seem that the chances of peace have lost
rather than gained ground during the week that has just
elapsed.

On the same subject Lc Nord says :
The affirmations relative to the chances of peace are
becoming more and more vague ; we are wrong to speak
even of a,ffirmations, since only expressions of doubt are
now uttered.

To the rumours of a step about to be taken in common
by a few German Courts with the Emperor of Russia,
with the view of inducing him to listen to some pacific
arrangement, other rumours of equal doubtful authority
have succeeded, which announce that the Diet is to be
again called upon to pronounce on the Eastern question,
Now, at the last sitting of the Diet on the 7th of De-
cember, that august assembly devoted itself merely to
questions of trivial importance. According to our pri-
vate letters and the Frankfort journals, the allegations
of which we reproduce, no proceeding, touching the
great question that now engages the public mind of
Europe, need be anticipated either on the part of Austria
or on that of any other state of the Confederation.
The lndependance says :
A fresh rumour is afloat respecting the negotiations
for peace. The Parisian Patric has undertaken to send
it forth to the world. General Stackelberg,.the military
attache to the Russian legation at enna, has, it is acid,
taken to St. Petersburg propositi Vions emanating from
Austria, and to which Prince Gortschakoff, the:represen-
tative of the Czar at the Court of Vienna, has given his
adhesion, at least, personally and provisionally. General
Stackelberg, the paper goes on to say, is shortly ex-
pected in the capital of Austria to return nom St. Peters-
burg, when it will soon be known how the Emperor
Alexander has received the proposals brought to him by
his military envoy. Such is the statement of the Patric.
In the whole of it there can be and there is no truth
save in the words announcing the speedy return of
General Stackelberg to his post of military attaché to
the Russian legation of Vienna. All the rest can only
be-a tissue of sheer invention. Why we will
ex-
plain. It is not recently, it is about two months g (), now
that a
General Stackelberg left Vienna in order to go, like
n
General Benkendorff, as aide-de-camp to the Emperor
Alexander to the Crimea, whither both those generals
precedsd the Czar in the journey he took, at the begin-
ning of last month, to the southern provinces of his em-
pir3. Messrs. Stackelberg and Benkendorff were even to
take active service in the Crimean army. But, at the mo-
ment of returning to his capital, the Emperor Alexander
changed his mind ; he ordered his two aides-de-camp to
go and resume their functions as military attachis—the
one at Vienna, the other at Berlin, but to pass through
St. Petersburg; before they proceeded direct to their
' posts. It was therefore from the Crimea, and not from
1 Vienna, that General Stackelberg proceeded to St.
Petersburg, where he must be At this very moment.