The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-07 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, SEPT. 7, 1863.

The rumoured drawing together—in alliance—o:
France, Russia, and Prussia, is, in many respects
as it appears to us, a thing incredible. Supposing,
f)r the sake of argument, that it should, notwith-
standing our incredulity, turn out to be an arrange.
ment actually in preparation, it would be a distinct
abandonment, all of a sudden, by NAPOLEON 111.
of the whole intricate scheme of his European
policy, such as it has unquestionably been hitherto.
Cossack or Republican, and that within less than
half a century ! Such, as every student of modern
history knows full well, was the startling alterna-
tive held in terrorem over Europe by the
Political Seer who was the founder of the
Dynasty of NAPOLEON 111. Such was one of the
last and most memorable predictions uttered by
NAPOLEON the FIRST shortly before his death in
exile upon the rock of St. Helena. And, with a
very slight modification indeed, that famous pro-
phecy is now, within the easy recognition of all, in
rapid process of fulfilment. Simply reading, for
Republican, Constitutional—it is already virtually
fulfilled. Virtually, we say, because, wherever
Constitutional Government has not been actually
established already in Europe, it is either being
established, or it is more or less confidently Imo-
raised as the goal towards which each absolute ruler
is hastening or affecting to hasten, Everywhere
the "forms" at the very least, if not the principles,
if not the practices, if not the rights, if not the
prerogatories of Constitutional Government have
been introduced. Everywhere the blessings of
Constitutional Government are vaunted even by the
Satraps and the Viziers of the more arbitrary Rulers
of Christendom. The insensate inheritor of the
Crown of FREDERICK THE SECOND ("called the
Great,"as his most eulogisth biographer has it naively
upon his very title-page), even that blundering,
stumbling Swashbuckler of a KING who seizes his
diadem, at the time of his coronation, as being his
by " right divine," rather than vouchsafed to him by
the permission of GOD and the wilt of the people
ho rules—even he, through this last arbitrary act
of his, the abrupt dissolution of the Chambers,
evidences, in a distinct though left-handed way,
his recognition of the rights of popular representa-
tion. Nay, the Russian Autocrat himself, while
striving, through the bloody thongs wielded
by his creature MOURATIEFF, to scourge the
unhappy Poles back again into subjection, affects
the virtue, though he certainly has it not, of
being desirous to ensure to his people the
consolations of a tranquil, and regular, and even, to a
certain extent, of a representative form of Govern-
ment. Since the death of ABDUL MEDJID, his
brother and successor, the new Sultan Caliph,
AZIZ, has not simply inaugurated, but has
ever since its inauguration been firmly and steadily
consolidating, at Constantinople, a new order of
things altogether, both politically and socially, a
sort of translated version of Constitutional Govern-
meat, done into Turkish, and revised and
modified by the Moslem Padisclaah. Upon
a smaller scale, under the auspices of the
Ottoman Porte, the new Pasha of EGYPT, son of
IBRAHIM, grandson of MAHOMET ALI, the en-
lightened successor of those able and gifted Vice-
roys, is doing the like with regard to his own pro-
vince. Spain and Portugal have,each in turn, long
since committed themselves fully and frankly to the
free air and the broad
noonday light of Constitu-
tional Government. A-11 Gernaany is rousing itself
to political activity, after
a period of protracted tor-
por, at the summons of the liaeseß himself; and this,
at the very period in the annals
of Austrian's absolu-
tism, when the EMPEROE.Of that great central Power
of the European Continent has but just freshly in-
;scribed, so to speak, upon his bannerlstZpigonniahoisf
imperial gonfanon, the symbols of the
Constitutional Government.
From the very outset of his accession to
supreme power at Paris, NAPOLEON M. mean-
while has persistently and ostentatiously held
out to the French people as the new order
of things distinctly within their view, almost
within their reach—as the goal clearly before
them, in perspective, and that not by any means
afar cff—a certain form or kied of Constitutional
Government. Imperialism based upon Democracy.
An Imperial Throne upon Democratic institutions.
An EMPEROR, a CiesAn, a NAPOLEON pre-
siding over a Representative or Constitutional
Government. Slowly, very slowly indeed, here
and there, his Majesty has been making good his
'word upon one or two points. But—in regard to
the main points of all—in that grand programme ?
Remembering his last magnificent and inngnani-
mons speech, referring in terms of profound admira-
tion to the liberty enjoyed here in England under our
Constitutional form of Government—How far, we
may ask, has NAPOLEON advanced towards the
realisation, for France, of any kindred institutions ?
Freedom of speech, of meeting, of writing, of
printing ? Where in France is the concession
of freedom to the journalists and to the occn-,'
pants of the Parliamentary tribune ? "Patience"