The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-30 00:00:00

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

LEEUTER'S TELEGRAMS.]

FRANCE.

The Emperor and Empress were present yester-
day evening at the representation given at the
Opera•Comique, on the occasion of the anniversary
of Halevy's birthday. The perform ince consisted
of the Eclair and a musical interlude. Their Majes-
ties remained to the cicse.

The thirteen deputies who have voted against the
Budget of 1865, were MM. Carnot, Darimon,
Dorian, Jules Fevre, Garnier.l'ages, Glas-Bizoin,
Henon, Magnin, Marie, Emile 011ivier, Pelletan,
Picard, and Jules Simon. Among the Opposition
members who, although present, took no part in
the vote, were MM. Baryer, Gueroult, and Havin.
M. Thiers voted for.
The works for the restoration of the cathedral of
Notre-Dame being nearly finished, the consecration
of the building has been fixed for the 31st instant.
It may appear singular that the venerable old build-
ing should have existed for so many centuries
without having witnessed this solemn ceremony.
Such is the fact, nevertheless, as will be seen by the
following sketch of its history. In the time of the
Emperor Tiberius, the site of the cathedral was
occupied by a temple of Jupiter, on the ruins of which
the first Christian church was raised soon after the
conversion of the Gauls by St. Denis the Martyr.
Several churches were successively erected on the
same spot, and destroyed in the troublous centuries
which followed, and in 1163 the first stone of the
present building was laid, during the episcopate of
byP
e
Alexander 111., who had
then
to
Sy,
France to
ul
escape the persecutions of
the Emperor Frederick and Victor, the anti-Pope.
Bishop Maurice died in 1196, leaving the cathe-
dral still unfinished, and the works were con.
tinned by Odo de Salley, his successor, till 1208, in
which year he died. During the succeeding cen-
turies the building advanced but slowly, and much
of what had been already completed was mutilated
by injudicious changes. The western front was
erected in the 13th century, and the two tran-
septs in the 16th. During the next two centuries
the church underwent many capricious alterations,
but made little advance towards completion, when
the great revolution came and menaced its total
destruction. The injuries then inflicted had been
buZ partially repaired when a popular tumult iu
1831 destroyed the archbishop's palace and seriously
I damaged the cathedral. Little was done to remedy
the damage till 1845, NI hen the Government en-

trusted the direction of the works to MM. Lassus
and Viollet-Leduc, and they have continued till
now with OCC%3IOIIQI intermissions ; thus, after
being in the hands of masons and artificers for more
than seven centuries, the old cathedral is at last in
a fit state to receive its saleren consecration.
BOURSE, May 28.—The market has not been very
animated, but previous prices well maintained.
Threes, for the Account, are unvaried at 66f. 70c.,
and Mobilier at 1,147 f. 50e. Eatlway Market also
firm. The market closed as follows :

41 p.n. Cents .. 93 10
Do. ehd month....
3 per Cents
Do. end month 66 75
Credit Mobilier 1150
Do. end month 1145
Bank Shares 3380 '—
Credit 1 ancier 1240
Roman

Italian Loan 69 20
Do. end month 69 10
Ditto Threes ..
New Mexican 59 75
Russian
Austrian ..
Spanish Threes..,
Horn., Debt 50 75
Deferred

btA IL

.a.v.
Cast..

Account.

Orleans 875
Northern
Lyoni.and Mediterranean 877 50 .. 877 50

New ditto
Suuthern 645 .. 642 50
Western
Eastern ....
Sardinian 363 75 .. 365
Austrian -
LAW bard
North of Spain
Saragossa . . 555 .. 552 50
Ditto to Barcelona .... 255 .. 260 —,

THE CONFERENCE.

o n
as rt ai
The Constitutionnel publishes at the head of its
l idpsiwith whicha igtr
desireseat display
ofty
peoneconsidered
of
thoseo as
semi-official. The subject is the probable course of
action which the Conference may decide en for the
Duchies. The writer declares that there can be but
two modes of solving the difficulties which exist :
" Either," ho says, " the stipulations decided on in
1852 must be returned to, and France whosigned those
arrangements has no motive for opposing such a
course, if it were admitted that they have still any
practical value, or the C9128€8 which led to the war in
spite of those stipulations would appear to have such a
character of gravity and permanency that the old order
of things must be abandoned, and other combina-
tions sought for. In the latter case the prine-i.pal
object should have been, and has been to remedy
the inconveniences which the arrangements of 1852
have produced, and to prevent the same causes from
leading to similar difficuities for the future. It
there be one point evident and beyond all discus-
sion, it is that the struggle has raised a question of
nationality. Time, instead of bringing about a re-
conciliation between two races, has only caused the
differences to be more strongly marked, ar d excite
rival and long.standing pretensions. For that cause
of disturbance there is, in the opinion of all serious
and disinterested men; only one really ff
e_sctual
remedy--separation—that is to say, the union
to Denmark of the Danish part of Schleswig
and the formation of a German State out
of Holstein and the German part of Schleswig.
In the interest of the integrity of the Danish mos
narchy, combined with German aspirations, an idea
was at first entertained that the new State might
be united to Denmark by a bond less close and less
immediate, and the expression ' personal union' was
mentioned. But, in addition to the complications
with which such an arrangement would saddle the
future, it would not remove any of the embarrass-
ments of the present, since there would still be the
union, and from the forced union it is that the war
resulted. That combination was therefore soon
abandoned, and the effective separation only seri-
ously remained under consideration. What we
must now ask is, what will the new German State
be, and what will it become ? Danish Schleswig
is and remains Danish ; that is well understood
But how will the fate of the new State be regulated
and who will be its Sovereign P On thatsubject, the
political principles of Imperial France are well
known. She dos not admit that a Sovereign should
be given to a country, or a nation to a Sovereign.
independently of the will of the people. The
French Government has therefore put forward the
principle most in conformity with the ideas of
modern civilisation, and has demanded that the
nation interested should be called on to decide its
own fate. The fate of that suggestion has been
what frequently happens from the most just and
the truest propositions. It at first excited astonish-
ment ; but afterwards by degrees that feeling was
followed by adhesions, which increased to such a de-
gree that we feel no hesitation in believing in 'the
success of the French proposition, and that such will
be the ground on which concilation will be effected."
Thb Press° speaks strongly against the pretension,
attributed by some of the French journals to Eng
land, of wishing to interdict the formation of a
Federal port at Kiel. The writer says :—.4 The
question is nothing less than to bring forward in
the Conference, and perhaps at the next sitting, the
pretension of prohibiting Germany from
making
Kiel a Federal port. If, on the one hand, there be
understood all the interest which England, and she
alone, would have in Germany being for ever deprived
of a naval force, every one will, on the other hand,
admit that such a pretension is quite inadmissible.
Supposing that holstein and a part or Schleswig
should form, as an independent State, part of the
Germanic Confederation and that point being ad-
mitted by England herself, the question as to who.
ther the Confederation will establish a Federal port
and the point where she will do so within her
own territory comes exclusively under the com-
petency of the Germanic Body, and in no way
under that of the Conference of London. Eng-
land, in spite of this elementary principle, cora.
tainly entertains the project we speak of, but
we consider it difficult for her to reasonably submit
it to the Conference. We feel on this subject a
hope and a certainty—the hope is that the prudence
if the other Governments will prevent England
from offering snob a gratuitous insult to Cirermany