The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-24 00:00:00

Visit of the Emperor to Arenenberg.

The visit of the Emperor to Arenenberg gives a
present interest to the following extract from the
" Reminiscences" of M. Coulmann, ex-deputy :
" The aspect of the place has changed little since
1820, and the Emperor will find there the same
souvenirs. In 1817 Queen Hortense purchased
Arenenberg, in the canton of Thurgau. The house
had two storeys, with three windows in front, of
the most simple construction, painted white, with
grey Venetian blinds. The Queen had a dining-
room built on the left, over which was a terrace
standing on columns and bordered by a light balus-
trade. Groups of flowers with poplars and weeping-
willows covered the esplanade. The part of the
garden looking on the lake, presenting the steepest
declivity, was planted with vines, At some dis-
tance from the dwelling-house there was a court
surrounded by buildings somewhat loftier, with an
exterior gallery on the first floor giving access to
the different apartments. The verdant horizons of
the forests extended behind, and in front was seen
on the small lake the island where legends place
the tomb of Charles le Gros. The great lake,
having on its side the city of Constance and the
glaciers of. the Senlis, formed the complement
of the picture. Prince Eugene Beauharnais,
in order to pass some time with his sister,
had caused a grand pavilion to be built on
a high ground in the neighbourhood, which was called
Engenberg. Such was the frame in the midst of
which rose the dwelling of her who was then called
the Duchess de St. Leu. It was there that a
Princess who had just before held at her disposal
the palaces of half Europe was permitted to dwell
under the surveillance of three or four different
police bodies. At the entrance of the vestibule there
was the bust of the Princess, crowned with a wreath
of flowers, and placed on a column. In the small
sitting-room there were a few pictures and two time-
pieces ; in another, communicating with it, there
was placed between the windows the picture by Gros,
representing Bonaparte crossing the Alps. Lastly,
in a third sitting room, there was a fine portrait, by
Prudhon, of the Empress Josephine seated on a sofa,
and a magnificent piece of Gobelin's tapestry. The
Queen's sleeping apartment on the first floor was
provided with a set of rosewood furniture, which
had belonged to Marie-Antoinette. The two young
princes, Napoleon and. Louis, lived with their tutor
in the buildings surrounding the Court. The
Arenenberg party was at that time composed of
the eldest son of the duchess, Prince Napoleon,
then sixteen years of age, and characterised by
the nobleness of his figure, features, and man-
ners. To these external signs of elevation in
mind and spirit there was already joined an
undefinable passion and sentiment for the fine arts.
When we reflect that it was in combating for the
liberty of Italy that this generous nature succumbed,
we find a wonderful accord between his promise and
his end. Such deaths are pledges—they are fruit-
ful, sacred, imprescriptible gages given to a cause.
The Prince Louis, the deux entre? as his mother
was wont to call him, with a more melancholy,
confiding, and tender expression of countenance,
lyao already remarkable at all bodily exercises.
Although only thirteen, whenever we were bathing
together in the lake, and came unexpectedly on icy
currents, he would dart away from us with the dex-
terity of a fish, and then laugh to see us landing.
iVere it a question of a horse difficult to mount, he

was sure to be the first to offer himself, and the
picture in which Cottereau at a later period drew
him in the act of taming a superb Swiss coarser
which had always thrown its riders was no fiction
or flattery. The two young men had a preceptor
who had received and who transmitted to them not
only the profound erudition of the Normal School,
wherein he had been ' maitre de conferences,' but
almost the most inflexible principles of the French
revolution, namely, M. Philippe Lebas, since a
member of the Institute, and who formerly be-
longed to one of our Republican assemblies."

THE PRINCE OF WALES A YACHTSMAN.—Happy
are we to find that the Prince of Wales, who patronises
every manly amusement, has become a yacht owner,
Messrs. John Hervey and Co., of Wivenhoe, Essex, having •
just completed for his royal highness a splendid cutter of
36 tons measurement, named the Dagmar. This will give
an additional impetus to yachting, which, independent of
the pleasure it affords to numbers, is of the highest impor-
tance, in a national point of view, as a means of protecting
our sea-girt isle.—Lord W. Lennox in Once a Week.
THE COURT.—It has not been sufficiently re-
marked that a change has taken place in the struc-
ture of our society exactly analogous to the change in the
structure of our polity. A Republic has insinuated itself
beneath the folds of a Monarchy. Charles 11. was really
the head of society ; Whitehall, in his time, was the centre
of the best talk, the best fashion, and the most curious
love affairs, of the age. Ho did not contribute good
morality to society, but he set an example of infinite
agreeableness. He concentrated around him all the light
part of the high world of London, and London concen-
trated around it all the light part of the high world of
England. The Court was the focus where all that was
fascinating gathered, and all which was exciting
was concentrated. Whitehall was an unequalled
club with female society of a very clever and sharp
sort superadded. All this, as we know, is now altered.
Buckingham Palace is as unlike a club as any place is
likely to be. The Court is a separate part which
stands aloof from the rest of the London world, and
which has but slander relations with the more amusing
part of it. The first two Georges were men ignorant of
English, and wholly unfit to guide, regulate, and lead the
London world. They both preferred a German lady or two
of not the best character to all else which London con-
tained. George 111. had no social vices, but he had no social
pleasures. He was a family man, and a man of business,
and sincerely preferred a leg of mutton and turnips after a.
good day's work, to the best fashion and the most exciting
social intercourse. in consequence, society in London,
though still, in form, under the domination of a Court,
assumed in fact its natural and oligarchical structure. It
has become an " upper ten thousand ;" it is no more
monarchical in fact than the society of New York. Great
ladies give the tone to it with little reference to the parti-
cular Court world. The peculiarly masculine world of
clubs and their neighbourhood has no more to do in daily
life with Buckingham Palace than with the White House
at Washington. Formal ceremonies of presentation and
attendance are kept up. The names of levee and draw-
ing-room still keep alive the remembrance of the time
when the King's bedchamber and the Queen's " with-
drawing-room " were the centres of London life, but
they no longer make a part of social enjoyment ; they are a
sort of ritual in which now a days almost every decent per-
son can, if he likes, take part. Even the Court and Court
balls, when pleasure is at least supposed to be possible, are
lost in the great turmoil of a London July. Careful ob-
servers have long perceived this, but it was made palpable
to every one by the death of the Prince Consort. Sinee
then the Court has been always in a state of suspended
animation, and for a time it was quite annihilated. But
everything went on as usual. A few people who had an
daughters and little money made it an excuse to give fewer
parties, and if they were very poor did not come to town ;
but as far as the general social life of London goes tb°
difference was imperceptible. The queen bee was taken
away, but the hive went on.—Fortnightly Review.
THE FAIR OFNIJNI NOVGOROD.—The annual fair.
of Nijni Novgorod commenced on the 27th of lasv
month, and was going on briskly, according to latest letters
w.
from that quarter. Cotton is said to be 20 per cent. boo
the rates of last year. Sugar is dearer, on account of tb
failure of beet-root in the Ukraine. The fires which hale
been so prevalent of late have necessitated stringent Diet'
sures of precaution for tha protection of the traders. Oh n u
19:
the places of public entertainment are allowed to keep t
tee
lights burning late at night : the curfew is sounded for tbe
general community at 11 o'clock. No smoking is tolera_
within the limits of the fair, nor is even the boiling 01
pot permitted.