The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-29 00:00:00

LONDOIV, MONDAY, MARCH 29,

Considerable solicitude is felt—l y those most
anxious fur the continuance of peace upon the Euro-
pean Continent—in regard to the political situation
in two very different directions. Iu one—there is
still visible the Belgian difficulty. In the other—the
Italian difficulty. According to the Etandard, mean-
while, consilerable masses of Prussian troops are
being concentrated along the railway from Breslau to
Bamberg. According to more than one or two of
the Continental newspapers, the whole of the Italian
peninsula, from the Alps to the Adriatic, from Como
to Passaro, is ripe for a Republican outbreak. Sinister
rumours are flying about in all directions as to the
probably fugitive character of the power attained, and
enjoyed now for some years past, by King VICTOR
EMMANUEL. The Democratic party, sick to death
of his rule, are described as not only prepared, but
eager to avail themselves of the general disaffection
excited among his nominal subjects by the evil in-
fluences awakened alike by excessive taxation and
by a long-continued and grinding conscription. The
" Re Galantuomo" is no longer so designated by the
Italian population. The divinity, SIIAKSPERE de-
scribes as hedging a crown, is no longer in any way
discernable, by those whom it concerns the most, in
the iron Crown of Lombardy, of CHARLEMAGNE, of
NAPOLEON LE GRAND. A Sovereign with the courage
of a trooper, the aspect of a swash-buckler, and the
tastes of a back-woodsman, has swept out of all
sense of its ever having existed, the glamour once, for
a very brief while, associated with his name. It is
now regarded by the political enthusiasts who, during
that brief interval just referred to, looked towards
him, in the hope of recognizing in him the reconciler
of all difficulties in the way of one United Italian
Sovereignty, mainly if not exclusively as the man
who, receiving two magnificent gifts from two very
different men indeed—Lombardy from the Emperor
NAPOLEON 111., the Two Sicilies from General
GARlBALDl—evidenced his gratitude by (there is
no other word for it) swopping Savoy for
the first, and by shooting down GARIBALDI
in return for the second upon the heights of As-
promonte. Since the " geographical idea," once upon
a time ridiculed as such by Lis Highness Prince MET-
TERNICH, came thus to be in some way or another
realized—the I'iedmontese, the Florentines, the Nea-
politans, the Sicilians, have chiefly had occasion to
recognise the existence for them of one soi-disant
United Italy through the medium of the tax collec-
tor. Whoever has travelled across the Roman pe-
ninsula has had no choice but to do so—with
his own eyes and ears—that it was so. Until
at last—and really, it must be sail, no wonder !—the
limits of endurance appear to be passed. Insomuch
that there are now recognisable indications that the
people have had enough of it—that the popularity of
the KING is not simply still upon the wane, but that
it is absolutely gone, and that he himself knows that
it is gone. United by a morganatic marriage to a
drummer's daughter—having through that lef t- handed
union a numerous family, the members of which he
has very recently legitimatised—VlCTOß EMMANUEL
is understood to have invested as largely as lie
could possibly contrive to do so in foreign funds
of good security, so as to be prepared, as
far as might be, should the worst come
to the worst, for any emergency. Meanwhile
the Italian Republicans taking heart from these very
evidences of royal solicitude at Florence, and hunger-
ing and thirsting more than ever for a somewhat
more southern capital, are understood to be
doing their very utmost to obey the behests
in real earnest at last—if they can—of Signor
MazziNr. General GARIBALDI, broken in
health, and still completely secluded in the island of
Caprera, no longer cherishes any faith whatever in