The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-16 00:00:00

FRANCE.

BOURSE, Jan. 15, Two o'clock.—The market is
busy with the bi-monthly reponse de primes (option)
which has been answered at 54f. 25c. on Italian
Stock, and at 506 f. 25c., on Credit Mobilier shares.
Quotations are firm, Italian Fives and Comptoir
d'Escompte have advanced—the former 25c.—at
54f. 40c., and the latter Bf. 75c.—at 840 f., whereas
French Threes, though steady, show no improve-
ment, remaining at 62f. 60c. General Ottoman
Debt have risen 40c. to 33f. Nothing noticeable in
Railway shares, which are quoted without any
variation.

Three o'clo,:k.—The market has closed firmly as
'chows :

4j per Cents 99
Do. end month —
3 per Cents. 69 60
Do. end month 69 Go
Credit Mobilier
Do. end month
Credit Foncier —
Do. end month 1415
'RAIL'

Bank Shares 3590
Italian Loan 54 50
Do. end month 54 471
Mexican Loan —
Do. Bonds —
Spanish Threes
Home Debt
Deferred
r A. 1113.

For Account.
Orleans
Northern llB2 50
Lyons and Mediterranean 912 50
Southern 568 75
Western
Eastern
Sardinian

543 75

Austrian
Lombard 3BB 75
North of Spain
Saragossa
Ditto to Barcelona
Roman.

97i -1-

The Rev. C. Kings'ey on the Ancien Regime

Yesterday afternoon the Rev. Charles Kingsley
commenced a short course of lectures at the Royal
Institution, " On the Ancient Regime as it existed
on the Continent before the French Revolution."
He commenced with a definition of the term ancien
regime, which he explained to signify a " caste" of
society distinguished from " class" and different from
aristocracy. The members of this caste, presuming
on a supposed superiority over the other-portions of
the community, whom they affected to control, re-
fused to intermarry with any one not belonging to
their own privileged set. The ancien regime took its
rise after the Thirty Years' War, and flourished during
the 17th and 18th centuries ; and Mr. Kingsley at-
tributed its origin to the reactionary conservative
feeling which followed that devastating war, when
the people, disgusted with constant turmoil, sought
anxiously for rest, and were inclined to reverence
the forms and practices of a bygone ago when those
forms and ceremonies were associated with honour-
able acts and useful works. It was an attempt to
restore chivalry without the spirit that gave it
vitality, or the benefits it conferred. It was, Mr.
Kingsley said, like mounting the empty suits of armour
in the Tower on wooden horses and endeavouring to
make them pass with the multitude forliving knights
on their chargers, ready to redress the wrongs of
mankind. He attributed the immediate origin of
the ancien regime to Louis XIV., who invited the
principal nobles of France to Paris, where they
passed their time in frivolity and idleness. He con-
demned in no measured terms the institution of this
caste, founded on pride and idleness ; those who
were included in it having neglected all the duties
belonging to them as nobles and landed proprietors,
endeavouring to grind down and keep under the
people whom they were bound to help and
succour. In England there never was an ancien
regime. The natural freedom of the people resisted
it, and the love of liberty inherent in them was
transplanted to America, whence it was reflected
back to France, and bore its fruits in the French
revolution, by which the ancien regime of that
country was destroyed. Mr. Kingsley contrasted
strongly aristocracy with caste, and, taking an en-
larged view of aristocracy, he attributed its creation
and maintenance to the possession of superior merit
rather than to superior wealth. It would be an evil
day for this country, he observed, were the aristo-
cracy destroyed, and in his beau ideal of such
an institution it should include every one who
is by his deeds noble and meritorious, and
should extirpate from its ranks all who are base
and ignoble ; though he feared it would be many
years before that opinion was generally accepted
and acted on. He repudiated the notion of equa-
lity, as being contrary to experience and common
sense; and at some length Mr. Kingsley proceeded
to show how, even on the assumption of the unity
of the human race—which he was not inclined to
dispute—differences would arise which would place
some men and some classes of men above others.
Thus, for example, the invention of the bow and
arrow would give immense advantage to those who
first possessed it ; and he considered the invention
of riding on horseback to have been of equal im-
portance in its time to the invention of locomotion
on railways in modern days. The consequences
resulting from it he pointed out in many ways,
showing how the people who rode on horse-
back had conquered and ruled over nations
numerically much more powerful. The invention
of breaking in horses to draw, and the construction
of carts with wheels, were also noticed as giving
governing power to those who first contrived those
appliances; and in this manner the growth of aris-
tocracies was traced to their elementary principles.
Mr. Kingsley did not fail to enforce that the duty
of governing bodies of men is to endeavour to raise
those below them to their own level, for if they did
not he said they might be sure that in the course of
time they would be dragged down to the lower level
of the populace.

TWO LADIES DROWNED AT LEAMINGTON.—On
Monday a sad accident happened at Leamington, by
which two young ladies, Miss Emily and Miss Emma
Place, were drowned in the river Learn. • About 4 o'clock,
while skating with some other friends, the ice suddenly
broke, and tho whole party were precipitated into the water.
Tho son and daughter of the Rev. J. 11. Smith struggled
to the shore with groat difficulty, and another young lady
was rescued by means of a rope. The deceased wore
buoyed up for some time by their clothing and by holding
on to the rope, but at last disappeared beneath tho ice.
There bodies were not recovered until life was extinct.
Tho deceased were sisters, and related to most respectable
families in Leamington,