The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-12 00:00:00

trHE THIRD EDITION OF THE SUN,"
A. Containing the Latest SPORTING DiTELLIGENCE,
lan be had Every Evening of
G. R. GLENIE, NEWS AGENT,
No. 4, Connaught-terrace, Hyde-park.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THis DAY.—Morning, 12h. 41m.—Afternoon, lh. 10m.
To-minnow... Morning, lh. 30m.—Afternoon, lb. 50m.

The Weather—Sun Office, Aug. 12, 1863.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1863.

Throughout these last fourteen years and eight
months, during which France has had her present
ruler at the head of the Government—for exactly
one "lustre" as PRESIDENT, for nearly eleven years
as EMPEROR—that ruler has often been welcomed
with enthusiasm by the peasantry and by the provin-
cial middle-classes, but never with more earnest or
more heartfelt acclamations than those which have
just greeted him in his short and rapid journey
through a portion of Normandy. Of itself this re-
ception is a reward to NAPOLEON 111. But it was
intended to be far more than that, we feel perfectly
well satisfied. It was designed, of course, or we
ere much mistaken, to be accepted by the
EMPEROR as a recognition of good services
done by him to France in certain material respects,
if not as yet assuredly in the rapid development of
liberal institutions under the imperial regime, if not
in the concession of greater freedom in writing and
in speaking, among the journalists and among the
occupants of the legislative tribune, at any rate in
the encouragement aff,rded to the arts and sciences,
in the development of commerce, in extension of
the railway system, and of the parallel system of
instantaneous telegraphy. Wherever in France the
Emperor NAPOLEON 111. receives anything in the
way of a more than ordinarily cordial reception, we
may rest assured of this, that it is due to the popu-
lar sense of the material advantages secured to the
French nation under his rule, through the vigorous
maintenance of order under his powerful and vigi-
lant, Government. None the less vivid is the appre-
ciation by the French multitude of the material
advantages thus secured to
,them by the reigning
Emperor, because the internal prosperity of France
during the last decade of his reign has been accom-
panied by a revival of her influence far and wide
among the nations of Christendom. The recovery
of her influence, tbst is among the councils of
Europe, by means of a foreign policy—designed
and carried ont from first to last by the
EMPEROR himself—combining with it (this astute
policy), alternately or simultaneously, an extraor-
dinary amount of prudence, boldness, tact, energy,
ductility or plasticity, according to the exigencies of
the moment, and yet evidencing throughout none
the less remarkably a marvellous tenacity or fixity
of purpose. Even when, to use the very mildest
phrase, the least scrupulous in his mode of advanc-
ing the material interests of France through the
medium of his diplomacy, the EMPEROR, while
alienating the feelings of other countries in regard
to himself and his policy, has so far directly
thereby appealed to the amour propre of the nation
he governs (ever handling the reins of his autho-
rity the while with a grasp of iron in a glove
of silk), that he has actually at those very times
contrived to enhance his reputation at home
at the very moment of his marring it abroad.
Perhaps the most flagrant illustration of this, yet
recorded in his history, is that furnished by the
little episode closing the Italian war—the incident
which, while mulcting Italy of Savoy and Nice, so
far compensated France for the blood and gold
squandered by her in the deliverance of Lombardy
from the Austrians (so far, at least, as any nation
could be " compensated" in that way for such
services), by the absorption of those very
territories within the line of the French frontiers,
An overwhelming majority of the French popula-
tion, if not actually the whole of the French mul-
titude together, forgave the scandal of the "sharp
practice," for the fact of,that territorial aggrandise-
ment. Materially, in effect, France has prospered, is
prospering under the rule of the French EMPEROR. In
her commerce, that is ; in her agriculture ; in her
manufactures ; in the restoration of her high autho-
rity among the nations of the earth at the council
board of Christendom ; and—as indicated in the
9tiestionable little incident just referred to—by the
4
ettlal increase of the French dominions.

A war or two France has had, it is true, 1
during
these last ten years of her present
reign as EMPEROR. This—in spite of his
peacetibia
in „ srogramme at Bordeaux, epitomised,
la paix.ett nAce, in a phrase—" L'Empire c'est
war with An:ar with Russia—in the Crimea. A
again, 981 h the
ea:m Lombardy. A war in China,
in armed alliance a"'
bide by bide with England—
last of all, in A
entirely
in Morocco. A war—
an
Y new direction—in Mexico.
'rhreatenings, but
hither
war, large or small, have only threatenings, of
excited by NAPOLEON'S Polley,
been at other times
l here
elsewhere than in
the various parts of the globe,
dicated. Bold that policy as briefly in.
itself to
be whenever any one of these shown
at length to be fairly adyeaa:s 11" come
But bolder still than his foreignure",. upon'
been the EMPEROR'S home policy
01:17 has
Answer us whether it has been so or iintna\hly.
COBDEN You who as a dispassionate witness can
attest that this despotic ruler of France was the man
to recognise the wisdom of the Free Trade Prin-
ciples, and, on recognising that truth, to adapt
those principles boldly to the future regulation, to
the veritable transformation, at a stroke of the pen
as it were, to the whole complex system of French

commerce.
Whenever NAPOLEON HI. is received with
more than usual cordiality by the French
multitude, that reception is attributable no
longer to the mere glamour of the glorious
name the EMPEROR bears. These acel.Rma-
tions are awarded to him not alone as ai\TAPoLEON,
as the EMPEROR, as the living chLi of the imperial
dynasty founded by the most wonderful man of
modern times—they apply to a very consider-
able extent to himself individually. They are
recognitions of all he has done for France,s
ince he ascended the throne and grasped the

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