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

THERMOMETER.

This morninz
This day at Two o'clock 73

Barometer-30.33.
Wind--N.-W. ; light, and fine.

• Nri 4 n!
S4l ti..
.1.5.44.**N

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
are 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 afforded to the arts and sciences,
in the development of commerce, in the 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, that is among the councils of
Europe, by means of a foreign policy—designed
and carried out 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 exigencie; 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 bo " 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
Questionable little incident just referred to—by the
actual increase of the French dominions.

4-
during
or two France has had, it is true,
these last ten years of her present
ruler's rein as EMPEROR. This—in spite of his
peaceable programme at Bordeaux, epitomised,
la Pais e, in a phrase—" L'Empire c'est
war with /8„1":'s:!l'atr , with Russia—in the Crimea. A
c-r7in Lombardy. A war in China,
again, as in the
rcea, side by side with Eagland—
in armed alliance,
ar in Morocco. A war—
entirelylast of all, in an l
141 new direction—in Mexico.
Threatcnings, but
war large or small rto only threatenings, of
,
, bay,
excited by NAFOLEWB polio been at other times
the various parts of the y
giy6ls:l,aessiiaon i
wreliverberiettfthsyef aln in
dicated. Bold that polio
be whenever any one of these
N, in
the
length to be fairly nave
uarta has come
But bolder still than his foreitea' upon.
g:
been the EMPEROR'S home polies 013c:11 sl°7 has
,Answer us whether it has been so or not11111:7*
"r'
coET,EN 1 You who as a dispassionate witness
n
attest that this despotic ruler of France was the ,nun
to recognise the wisdom of the Free Trade prin..
otple4, and, on recognising that truth, to adapt
these privciples boldly to the future regulation, to
the veritable transformation, at a stroke of the pen
plex system of French
as it were, to the whole coni

commerce.
Whenever NAPOLEON W. is received with
more than lanai cordiality by the 17"nch
multitude, that reception is attributable no
longer to the mere glamour of the glorious
name the EMPEROR bears. These acclama-
tions are awarded to him not alone as a NAPOLEON,
as the EMPEROR, as the living chief 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
recogaitiona of all he has done to France,
muse he ascended the throne and grasped the