The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-08 00:00:00

STATUE OP NAPOLEON I. AT MILAN.

The • statue of Napoleon stands where Canova
placed it at Milan fifty years ago. Various vicis-
situdes of fortune have swept over Italy since then.
Long, dark, and weary nights of oppression, broken
by brief and stormy gleams of hope and liberty,
have come and gone, and now the spirit of that
mourning land seems to dwell in a twilight of dis-
content, distrust, and doubt. But the master-
piece of the eminent sculptor remains where it was,
primus inter pares among the modern monuments
of Lombardy, recalling to the memory of old men
the day when the great Italian soldier placed the
Iron Crown upon his plebeian brow. The House
of Hapsburg has indeed regained that rugged dia-
dem, and, with the exception of a brief interval,
has succeeded in retaining it within its grasp. But
the image of Napoleon has never ceased to be un-
welcome to its waking sight, and the echo of his
name still troubles its dull dreams. Could the
mute lips of the marble effigy speak, they would
speak in the Italian tongue ; that was the dialect
in which the great usurper thought ; that was the
language of his conquering youth and meditative
age. His rack and power and European fame was
that of France ; but the genius of the man was that.
of Italy • as Emperor of the West, Europe feared
and hated him ; but it was as an Italian king of
Italy who bad driven her German gaolers out, and
shut her mountain gates upon them, that Austria
hated him whilst living, and trembled at the recol-
lection of what he had been, after he was consigned
to his distant grave. And Austria trembles still
at the mention of his name ; and is disturbed at
each successive step which his recent successor
seems to take in resuscitating the memories of that
upstart dynasty, which she had hoped was over-
trown for ever. In vain she has tried diligently
to look at first indifferent, and then pleased, at the
restoration of Bonapartism in France. In vain she
has made haste with expressions of royal recog-
nition, and the interchange of the insignia of
knightlyhonours. Invain she has affected diplomatic
confidence, and entered into treaties and conven- I
tions for the maintenance of that. European status
quo, on which her existence as a first-rate power
necessarily bangs. Never for an hour since the
coup d'etat of the 2d of December, has Austria felt
thoroughly at ease. Whenever since that memo-
rable day the recollection of what Napoleon I. was
in Italy has crossed her mind, the unpopular
sceptre of the Veneto-Lombard kingdom has
trembled in her hand. Perhaps she never felt so
free from apprehension and misgiving as during the
campaign in the Crimea, when the flower of the
French army was engaged in murderously pro-
tracted conflict with the best of her Northern rival's
troops, far from the shores of the unreconciled
and irreconcilable Italy. But since the Peace
of Paris sentiments of alienation seem to
have daily gained greater and, greater strength.
Tee French Minister has been withdrawn from
Naples ' • and French influence at the Court of
Turin has notoriously been gaining ground. A
thousand circumstances, in themselves trivial, have
contributed to widen the breach between the two
Governments ; and the press of Vienna and Paris
have for months been occupied iu mutual revilings..
Considering how completely the journals of both
capitals are under the avowed surveillance of the
police, it is impossible to interpret their acrimony
otherwise than as the overflowing of Imperial
antipathies. Men's eyes are turned instinctively
to the old field of French and Austrian encounter.
Time and time-serving diplomacy, change and
changing policy, have altered nothing there. Italy,
the great weakness of Austria in the first Napoleon's
time, is still the great opportunity for France in
the days of his nephew and successor. All the
lying of legitimacy and all the peaceful professions
of the Imperial parvenu cannot make it more or
less dangerous and tempting than it was, and is,
and is certain to continue to be. And there, in
the over-garrisoned capital of the disaffected realm
the statue of Napoleon stands, breathing, even as .
he did in life,, scorn of the stranger and haughty -
detestation of the oppressor's race.
There is something ineffably naïve, and yet some-
thing ineffably pitiful, in the offer made to the
French Government by the EnaperorFrancis Joseph
of the minatory statue of Napoleon. ".Have it if
you will and welcome; take it away--pay regal or
divine honours to it if 'you will at Paris ; let it be
worshipped anywhere audibly and openly—only
not here ; rid us of its presence ; it is a daily re-
proach, an hourly humiliation, au intolerable me-
mento of the past, and menace for the future ; do
us the honour to accept so invaluable a gift." It
would perchance be deemed by the diplomatic
world discourteous if Napoleon 111. declined the
favour ; and with political badinage refused to de-
prive his Imperial brother of an object sacred not
only as a national work of art, but as an historic
monument in the eyes of his Austrian Majesty's
Italian subjects. He might add, in mauvaise
plaisanterie, that in France the work of Canova's
chisel was not needed to keep alive the glorious
recollections of Lodi and Mareugo ; and that as the
illustrious artist had been originally commissioned
to make an image of Napoleon for the metropolis
of Northern Italy, where it had in fact been placed
on its completion by his command, it would ill be-
come his peaceful descendant to deprive that noble
city of its noblest statue. What reply may actu-
ally be given to the singular offer we know not ; •
but be it' what it may, the offer and the answer
will excite many a deep emotion, where it would
probably have been better for Austria's sake that
moody stillness had been left to reign. —Daily
Kews.