The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-04 00:00:00

Closing of the Portuguese Chambers.

LISBON, June 27.
To-day the King, accompanied by Dom Fernando
and his suite, closed the Cortes with the usual
ceremonial. His Majesty delivered the following

speech :
" Worthy Peers of the Kingdom, and Gentlemen
Deputies of the Portuguese Nation,—When, a little
more than a year ago, I last brought your Parlia-
mentary labours to a close, I spoke in your midst as
follows I trust that the next legislative session
will be distinguished by extensive reforms, and that
the remsentatives of the people avelL apply their
abilities and devotion to the fatherland towards
bringing about a wise and enlightened solution of
the great social problem with which are bound up
the morality, progress, and the well-being of the
nation.' Never were hopes better realised, nor pro-
mises more largely fulfilled. The enlightened policy
of nations should be determined by their real re-
quirements, and directed accordingly. These re-
quirements nowadays, may be represented as the
assiduous and prudent employment of the activity
of all, and the utilisation of the talents of all for
the useful development of the administration in
the acknowledged interest of the people. This
general belief occasioned the adoption of a policy
of peace ; by it you have allowed your incessant
labours to be perseveringly directed, and the nation
has received the economical, administrative, and
financial transformation which has just been effected
in its laws, and which is about to be carried into
practice, with an entire absence of those shocks
which it has experienced at other periods. Pru-
dence takes its birth front the enlightenment, good
sense, and progress of the public manners. Many
and important are the reforms which have been
adopted during the closing session. Tho depart-
ment 'of the Ministry for Foreign Aff.iirs has
been organised, the treaty of commerce with
Franco has been concluded with the object
of opening up a larger market to the na-
tional productions, and facilitating the importation
of foreign goods. The extradition treaty with
Spain, based upon the acknowledged principles of
international law, and other conventions and
treaties of manifest utility have also obtained the
sanction 'of Parliament. Tho State finances show
a marked improvement, in consequence of the
measures you have adopted for effecting extensive
reductions in the expenditure, advantageously re-
organising different branches of the public service,
creating new sources of revenue, and fixing other
rules for proper administration. We are thus
gradually approaching an equilibrium between the
State revenue and expenditure—the fruit of the
public peace and of the development of the pro-
ductive powers of the country. My Government
will pursue with perseverance its purpose of re-
forming the different branches of the public service
while keeping in view the most rigid ecJnomy ; and
I trust that in this task you will afford them the
concurrence of your enlightened abilities and
patriotißtn. The development of every means of
transit, ordinary-as well as extraordinary, is secured
by the important bills which you have passed on
that subject, and the completion of the railways of
the country, and of its high roads, will, we trust,
generalise in all parts the great benefits already en-
joyed by a considerable portion of the nation. The
establishment of agricultural credit and of co-
operative societies, and the bill you have adopted
relative to anonymous companies and the draining
and cultivation of marshy lands, will systematically
conduce to the development of public credit and the
wealth of the people. The civil code recently
adopted—a monument of enlightenment and

labour, and a masterpiece of national glory—opens

up a memorable page in our parliamentary history,
and calls loudly for the blessings and applause of
the country upon the laudable efforts of all those

who have contributed towards the realisation of the
most fertile reform of our times. The penal reform,
by organising the penitentiary system, has
also effected the legal abolition of that capital
punishment which has happily been so long
disused in practice. The simplification of the ad-
ministration of justice, comprising the extinction of
the posts of ordinary judges and the reform of the
jury system, will fulfil the urgent requirements of
the judicial organisation. The recruiting for the
navy and the reform of the higher branches of the
Ministry of Marine and the Colonies were useful
tasks long required for the convenience of the pub-
lic service, with which, likewise, your solicitude has

been occupied. Finally, the general reform of the
civil administration, without loosening the ties which

sustain the solidarity of the State, has established
the administration upon definite bases of administra-
tive decentralisation by interesting the people in the

exercise of power and uniting round them the coin-

petition of different talents. Having entered upon
these various momentous questions with rare devo-
tion, and. solved them with your usual vast intelli-
gence and experience, you are now about to repose
from the fatigue of a laborious legislative session,
with the consciousness of having well served your

country in the independent use of your legisla►tive
authority. From the systematic connection existing
between the labours of the present session, and from
the continuation of your exertions, the nation has
much to hope. In the midst of free Governments
there are various coexisting rights all seeking to de-

velopc themselves—some in order to maintain order
and social authority; others to guarantee the public
liberties and individual interests. Mutual respect
and the simultaneous maintenance of these rights
constitute the security, the duration, the honour,
and the life of society, and form the stable basis of
the policy of nations. It is now some time since
Portugal has entered upon this path, which she has
followed with firmness and conviction, and to it she
will owe the completion of the work for which we
are all so incessantly labouring. Our tranquillity
at home, our relations of close amity with the na-
tions who are our allies, and the general peace
which is enjoyed by Europe are happy conditions
which allow of our applying the solicitude of the
administration and the resources of the people to-
wards those improvements which can only be at-
tained in times of peace. The present session is
closed."

THE PALACE OF THE ELYSLE.—But a terrible
doom was hovering over the Palace of the Elysee ;
a fatality so well known, that it is scarcely necessary hero
to remind the reader that on the 13th of February, 1820,
Shrove Sunday, the Duc do Berri, after dining with the
king at the Tuileries, repaired to the opera in company with
the Duchess do Berri, and that, whilst banding her iuto her
carriage when she was about to leave (ho having deter-
mined to stay until a later hour), he was stabbed by the
fanatic assassin, Louvei. Nor is it within the scope of
this present paper to specify all the heart-rending circum-
stances of the scene which ensued within the walls of the
opera house—for the dying Due de Berri was conveyed
back thither; his wife, half frantic with grief, still clung
to him; the gala dress and flowers which she wore were
stained with his blood. It was during that scene that the
Due de Berri, in presence of the royal family, who had
been summoned to attend his last moments, implored his
wife to calm herself for the sake of her unborn child, and
in consideration of that hope which had not yet been pro
claimed, but which was all important to royalists in Franco
and thus with his dying breath the Due de Berri first
intimated the coming birth of his son, " Henri Dieudonn6,"
Due de Bordeaux, commonly now called Count do Oham-
lna—T/4 cfnalman4 Nagazinl.

" It is also proposed to commemorate by a solemn
rite the memory of that most auspicious day on
which the most blessed Peter, and his fellow apostle,
Paul, suffered illustrious martyrdom in this city
1800 years ago, consecrating by their blood the im-
movable rock of Catholic unity. What could be
more desirable to us, venerable brethren, ILIA more
befitting the triumph of such great martyrs, than
when doing them honour to display in their greatest
strength and brilliancy the noble examples and
spectacles of the unity of the Catholic Church ?
What could be more just than that this .rejoieingicr
the triumph of the Prince of the-Apostles, which is
common to the whole Catholic world, should also be
celebrated by your coming hither, and by your love?
What, finally, is more worthy than to increase the
splendour of this commemoration by the addition of
your piety and gl tdness ?
" But this piety and harmonious concord with the
Apostolic Sae are not only opportune and grateful
to us, but are further of the greatest moment, inas-
much as they will have abundant and salutary fruit
in restraining the audacity of the impious, and will
be of common utility to the faithful and all of us.
The adversaries of religion will be made to understand
what virtue and what vital power exist in the Ca-
tholic Church, which they unceasingly persecute;
they will learn with what foolish loudness they have
proclaimed it as having exhausted its strength, and
finished its appointed course, and finally they will
know how ill they applaud their own triumos, and
trust in their own counsels and their own strength,
and will discover that so great a union of strength
as the spirit of Jesus Christ and the Divine virtue
blends in the Apostolic confession cannot be shaken.
Certainly, however useful it may have been at other
times, it is more than ever especially necessary in
these days, venerable brethren, that it should be
manifested to all men that it is only possible for
souls to be strictly united where ono and the same
spirit of God dominates all. But God abandoned,
and the authority of the Church despised, men, de-
prived of that happiness which they seek in evil, aro
miserably tossed by angry storms and dissensions.
" But for the common advantage of the faithful,
what can be more expedient and salutary, venera-
ble brethren, in increasing the reverence of Catho-
lics towards us and the Apostolic S‘!e than to see
how greatly their pastors value the rights and the
holiness of Catholic unity, recollecting that for this
cause they have traversed great tracts of land and
sea, and have not been deterred by any inconveni-
ence from hastening to Rome to revere in the per-
son of our humility the successor of Peter and the
Vicar of Christ on earth. From this authority of
example much more than from the subtlest doctrine,
the faithful will learn what veneration, obedience,
and devotion should be cherished toward us to
whom, in the person of Peter, it was said by Christ
our Lord, Feed my lambs ; feed my sheep,' and
by these words were committed the supreme care I
and authority over the whole Church.
" May you also, venerable brethren, in fulfilling
your sacred ministry, derive good fruit from your
reverence for the Apostolic See ; and, indeed, the
th mys tic
greater the bonds of familiarity of faith and love
which bind you to the corner stone of e
edifice in so much the greater degree, as we are
courage required by the
taught by the history of the Church in all time, will
you possess that strength and
meet adversity the
greatness else could Christ
ss confidingof his tob e Peter
re
et en r,
greatness of your ministry
the violence of enemies. IV
hat
Lord have
prayed for thee that thy
thweifiwrnm,
theo care of sot:unite::
faith fail not ; and when thou art converted
he said, But I have
strengthen thy brethren ?' It is certain, as is ob.
served by St. Leo the Great, ' that the Lord had
especial care for Peter, and offered supplication
principally for the faith of Peter, as the minds of
others would be more firmly established if the mind
of the Prince remained unshaken. Thus in Peter
the courage of all was strengthened, and the aid
of the Divine grace was so ordered that the firm-
ness attributed by Christ to Peter was communi-
cated by Peter to the other Apostles.'
" Therefore we have always believed that of that
strength, which our Lord by a special gift con-
ferred upon Peter, a portion is always transferred
to you each time that you approach the person of
Peter which lives in his successors, and only touch
the soil of this city moistened by the triumphal
sweat and blood of the sacred Prince of the Apos-
tles. Neither do we doubt, venerable brethren, that
from the sepulchre in which repose the ashes of
the most blessed Peter there emanates a certain
secret strength and salutary virtue which inspires
the pastors of the Lord's flock with firm courage,
lofty spirit, and generous faculties; which reani-
mates their strength and causes the audacity of
the enemies of the Church to fall in an unequal
struggle before the valour and power of Catholic

unity.
" In fact—why should we disguise it, venerable
brethren?—wo already find ourselves engaged in