The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-19 00:00:00

KING WILLIAM AND THE IMPERIAL CROWN.

One of the most striking facts in the history of this
century, says the Daily News, has just been consummated
at Versailles. King William of Prussia has resolved to
accept the great historical title of Emperor of Ger-
many. The act is the symbol of a long series of im-
portant changes in the Continent of Europe. It is
the seal, also, of the great dynastic changes which
have ended in a consolidation of Germany. The
final undoing of the work of the First Napoleon, who
laboured hard to dissever and weaken the great Power
lying just outside his frontiers, has been wrought by the
blunder of Napoleon the Third. However this war may
end— and that it may end in finding the Republic of
France placed in a fair and honourable position among
the Powers of Europe, is the heartfelt prayer of every
Liberal in this country—the unity of Germany has been
secured. There are some Germans, as there are some
Englishmen, who are not disposed to join in the jubila-
tions ; and who, gratified by the consolidation of Ger-
many, would have preferred seeing her led by some other
leader than the House of Hohenzollern. Some recent
proceedings have not made us form a very exalted notion
of the political liberty which is likely to mark the rise
of the new Empire. What the more hopeful
of the Germans say is—one thing at a time.
Let us secure for ourselves a term of peace, and then we
shall set about getting our private affairs into order. It
cannot be doubted that among the more intellectual
classes in Germany—and these represent a large portion
of the population—there exists a widely-spread leaven of
Liberalism, which may be as yet a mere sentiment, but
which must in time bring forth its natural fruit.
It is to that sentiment that many Germans look
for oomfort in regarding with anything but satisfaction
the rise and progress of the Hohenzollerns, whose histo-
rical traditions are linked with too much that is absolutist
and tyrannous in government. As for the honour which
has come late in life to the venerable Monarch who
at present represents the family, they may not
grudge that a temporary distinction. A far more
serious thing is the position to which the Junkerism of
Prussia has been raised by the present war. From time
immemorial the military element in Prussia has overborne
the civilian ; and the successes of the present
campaign, should they be continued to the end,
are not likely to qualify that relation between the
lovers of peace and the professors of war. Yet the new
Emperor sketches out a gracious programme. Martial
conquests are to be forgotten. The lion is to lie doxstai
with the lamb ; and Germany to devote herself to works
of peace, under the beneficent shadow of the Imperil
throne. Let us hope so.

FRANCE AND THE CONFERENCE,

„ •
The Telegraph, in referring to the assembling of the •
Conference at the Foreign Office, says :In the centre of the .”
Conference Chamber is a great round table covered with
green cloth, and on this table are six tall silver candlesticks
with towering wax lights. Around are the Plenipoten-
tiaries of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Turkey, Italy, and
Great Britain—six in all. Another seat is appropriated '
to the Secretary-Reporter of the proceedings ; but there t:
are eight morocco covered chairs around this •
table. For whom is the eighth ? The artist '•
who desires to depict the august scene must
limn one vacant chair; one seat whose very emptiness •
should awaken feeling as sad as those aroused by contem- •
plating Mr. Field's exquisite drawing of the deserted study
at Gadshill—with the empty chair of the great writer
who sleeps the last long sleep in the Abbey.
To the London Conference of 1871, France alone, of •
all the Great Powers, comes not, as yet. You •
might as well ask Niobe to sit at the same board with
the Destroyer who shot the arrows at her children.
How could Jules Favre, it might be asked, regard with . •
equanimity the presence of a complacent Prussian •
Plenipotentiary, with Count Bismarck's orders in his '
pocket ? There are no Holy Places, there is no Black
Sea, for France in this mid-January. One gigantic and ,
absorbing thought must at present engross the minds of
all true Frenchmen—that the Prussians are on the .
Moselle, the Loire, and the Seine ; that their •
King is at Versailles, and that Prussian sentries mount '
guard- at the portals of the Palace inscribed "in all
the glories of France ;" that the Prussian batteries
are at Sevres, at Clamart, and Chatillon—at
L'Hay, and Bonneuil—and that their guns are
showering fire and death Upon Notre Dame, the Pan-
theon, and the Invalides. What is the Turk, his •
sickness and his convalescence, to France, when the '
crying of her children is heard in her lower chambers, -
and the women faint and fall at the street corners, and
the old men die on the threshold, and the floor of the
granary can be seen, and the whole people wail because
there is no food ? Will the opening or the shutting of the
Dardanelles bring one yoke of oxen, one sheep and her •
lamb, into starving Paris? Will any decision on the
claims of the Russian Emperor to float his war-ships
in the Euxine avert one murderous petroleum
shell from the rooftrees of the French capital? There are
times when selfishness becomes sublime. Samson, in the
great might of his blind rage, could think of nothing
but himself—of his own irreparable injury, of his
own intolerable wrongs ; and when he clung to
the pillars of his house to pull it down upon his
tyrants, he would have pulled down the whole •
world if he could. So would ranee now, were her locks
grown again and her muscles reknit. She can see, she
can think, she can confer but on one topic—her colossal •
misery, her unheard-of agony, her tremendous ordeal.
While Paris is being bombarded it is no time to ask a
Frenchman his opinion about the Black Sea.