The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-26 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 1870.

THE bombardment of Paris would be a calamity
to Europe. No civilised. man could contemplate
without a shudder the destruction of the fair and
peerless Lutetia. Under the reign of NAPOLEON
111. it has become the most beautiful and resplendent
capital on the Continent. Its improvement has not
been superficial. In a sanitary point of view Paris has
been transformed subterraneously as well as above
ground during the regime of the present EMPEROR.
It has been rendered salubrious as well as magnifi-
cent. There is in one sense no extravagant
boasting on the part of a Parisian when he speaks of
that French metropolis he is so proud of, and with
reason, as the capital of civilisation. London is
larger, is wealthier, is more populous. Rome is
crowned with a double glory of pagan and pontifical
supremacy. Jerusalem is venerable and august from
its divine and awful associations. But as a capital
representing the present epoch, illustrating
the character of the civilisation of the age,
typical of the genius of the nineteenth
century, no city in either hemisphere can for an in-
stant be brought into comparison with the grand and
symmetrical metropolis of France. Than it is now,
it has never been grander or more symmetrical. It
is adorned with majestic edifices, it is paved, and lit,
and decorated with statuary, and planted with
trees from end to end of the geometrical
labyrinth of the rus in urbe of its
system of boulevards. The antique grandeur
of Notre Dame, the classical beauty of the Madelaine,
the noble facade of what was, until the inauguration
of the Second Empire, the semi-pagan Pantheon,
what is now the church of St. Geneviere,
the gilded dome of the Invalides, imme-
diately beneath which is the grandest sepulchre
ever prepared for the ashes of a great man,
the colossal porphyry tomb containing the remains
of the founder of the imperial dynasty, the
Trajanesque column cast in bronze from the guns of
Austerlitz, and surmounted by the effigy of the first
EMPEROR in his Coronation robes, the bridges
spanning the Seine, the Tuileries and the Louvre,
with their priceless art treasures, the Sainte
Chapelle, in itself so exquisitely ornate an ecclesias-
tical edifice that one thinks of it as of a gem of
price, as "one entire and perfect chrysolite"—these and
other treasures, constituting in themselves .the chief
interest of what we speak of in the aggregate as
Paris, these, and the million and a half of people
inhabiting that great city are what would now be
jeopardized, what would certainly be mutilated, what
would possibly be destroyed if the French metropolis
wer subjected to the horrors of a bombardment.
Before that supreme agony for France, that immense
sorrow Efor urope can, by any possibility however,
come to pass, the armies of France—defeated already,
it is true at Woertb, and Forbach, and Weissenburgh,
and Rezonville —would have to be utterly routed and
the remnants of them driven for shelter
within the line of the fortifications. Rome, as
the prover a it, was not built in a day. France
we may be certain will not be ruined, Paris will not
be destroyed otherwise than after a long and fierce
struggle, a struggle of absolute desperation. In
every case the war at its commencement was regarded
with dismay by surrounding nations. It is regarded
now that it is approaching its climax—it may even
be its disastrous termination, with the deepest
anguish and the profoundest solicitude. With whom-
soever the victory may rest when all is over, the
Frauco-Prussian war of 1870 will have cost the
world a quarter of a million of our fellow-
creatures.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE AMERICAN MINISTRY IN ENGLAND.

Mr. Frelinghuysen is said to be hesitating before
he risks the chance of meeting with the fate of his
immediate predecessors in the American mission in
England, and his delay in making up his mind has
induced some of the New York journals to urge that
the Ministry should be left vacant in order to give
an indication of American ill humour about the
Alabama controversy. This would lead to very disagree-
able results to both nations in the future, although
with Englishmen who have already become well
used to American grumbling, a change in the
method of exhibiting it might possibly counteract
the unpleasantness of not having Brother Jonathan
actually represented amongst us. If Mr. Freling-
huysen really intends to visit England, he would
certainly be more certain of cordiality and of what
glory still remains to the American office if he were
to put a stop to all unpleasant plans for making John
Bull angry, by accepting the post offered to him at
once, especially as unfavourable symptoms of dark
projects have already begun to be discussed.