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'scssion
will be distinguished by extensive reforms, and that
the representatives of the people will apply their
abilities and devotion to the fatherland towards
brieging 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 from the enlightenment, good
sense, and progress of the public manners. Many
and important are the reforms which have been
adopted during the closing session. The depart-
ment of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has
been organised, the treaty of commerce with
France 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. The 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 economy ; and
I trust that in this task you will afford them the
concurrence of your enlightened abilities and
patriotism. 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 tics 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 com-
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 legislative
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 ELYSEE.—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 Duo de Berri, after dining with the
king at the Tuileries, repaired to the opera in company with
the Duchess de Berri, and that, whilst handing her into her
carriage when she was about to leave (he having deter-
mined to stay until a later hour), he was stabbed by the
fanatic assassin, Louvel. 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 do Bern 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
Duo 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 France
and thus with his dying breath the Due de Berri first
intimated the coming birth of his son, " Henri Dieudonms,"
Due de Bordeaux, commonly now called Count de Chem-
WO. —Zhe entknian's Magazine.