The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-25 00:00:00

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SIM,

LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 1863.

At the moment when the new French Ministry
is settling down to the labours of administration,
it may be as well to recapitulate what these recent
changes precisely are that have been effected by a
few strokes from the pen of the Emperor NAPOLEON.
The Foreign Policy and the Financial Policy of the
Imperial Government, we may regard, at once, as
we intimated yesterday, as unchanged. M. FOULD
Still happily remaining in office as the responsible
financier, and M. DROUYN DE L'Hun as head of
the Foreign Department. Otherwise the trans-
formation of the Cabinet has been complete and
radical throughout. M. BILLAULT replacing the
Count WALEwsKI as the Minister of State without
Portfolio. M. BARoCHE, hitherto President of the
Council of State, replacieg M. DELANGLE as
Minister of Justice. M. BOUDET, until now Pre-
sident of Section to the Council of S `ate, repining,
the Count DE PERSIGNY as Minister of the Interior.
DURUM, heretofore Inspector-General of Public
Instruction, replacing M. ROULAND as Minister of
Public Instruction. M. BEHIC, yesterday but
simply Councillor of State, replacing as Minister
of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, M.
ROUSER, who has now been nominated by the EM-
PEROR to M. BAROCHE'S just vacated post as President
of the Council of State. Simultaneously with which
sweeping transformation of things in the general
construction of the Cabinet, the Imperial decree ap-
pears appointing the Duke DE MORNY to the Pre-
sidency of the newly elected, but as yet not inate
gurated, Corps Legislatif. We have purposely re-
capitulated here at length the actual changes that
have so recently and so suddenly taken place at
Paris by mandate of the EMPEROR, because having
merely had the opportunity of glancing hurriedly
at them in our impression of yesterday, but a few
moments, as it were, after the earliest announce-
ment of their occurrence by telegram—we regard
them as of such vital importance to European
interests generally, that we are solicitous, without
one instant's unnecessary delay, to indicate as we
have just now actually done by a simple juxta-
position of names the precise difference between
the Imperial Cabinet as it was and as it is. An
animated portraiture of the new Minister of State,
M. BILLAULT, pencilled with singular grace and
delicacy by his sometime secretary, M. NORBERT
BILLIART, appears this morning in Le Constitu-
tionnel. After describing the new Minister of State
as one whose bearing and general deportment are
in no way characterised by an air of pretension,
the writer observes that, in oratory, M. BILLAULT
is endowed with qualities very rarely united, his
speaking being at once easy, and yet marked by
gravity, rapid and yet most clearly accentuated.
" His sympathetic voice," says the Minister's former
Secretary, " a little softened or modulated in the
higher notes, has about it much nervous force and
even animation, being in effect the supple andexact
medium for the expression.of his thoughts." A little
litter on in this minutely careful limning of the
'Minister of State, M. BILLIART observes some-
what characteristically that, by his • Excellency,
Ctexac, is by no means regarded as an oracle,
BlLLauter being rather of the same opinion
with Roue_e whovipeda,lia had a mortal antipathy for
the ses2
the
readiest M. BILLAULT, he adds,
is by far
extempore speaker now
conneeed with the Government, disdaining
with the utmost ee„ _ even,
the aid of any
notes even when abofin4Jate:' deliver a discourse
from the Tribune. It is precisely
this gift of
improvisation, it is this certainty, iris this rapidity
of coup dad that makes him unrivalled as an
o.
cats in reply. So much for M. BILLAULT, regarded
individually through this well-timed sketch of him
given in the columns of Le Constitutionnel. "It
would be difficult," says L'Opinion Nationale of
this evening, " just at present to form any
precise idea as to the significance of this
Ministerial reorganisation, for we know not
enough of Messieurs BOUDET, BEJIIC, and
DURUM to be able to appreciate seriously
their tendencies." The retention of some of the
Ministers in the Cabinet and the removal of others
from it to be replaced by new men, fairly
tends to
the bewilderment of Le Siecle. says that
organ, " the reason of the retreat of M. DE PER-
STONY is very evident, one is inclined to ask, what

possible motive there could be for the repl,eement
of Messieurs ROULAND, DELANGLE, and WALEW-
SXL" Le Siecle might at least have added that