The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-20 00:00:00

THE SITN,

LONDON, FitibAlf EftNING,,,

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
On Wednesday a grand dinner was given by the
President of the National Assembly to the PRESIDENT
of the Republic. Covers were laid for 80. Among
the guests were the Ministers; the President of the
Council of State; Cardinal Fornari, the Papal
Nuncio ; the English, Spanish, and Turkish Am-
bassadors ; the Ministers Plenipotentiary or Charge
d'Affaires of the United States,- Belgium, Holland,
Naples, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Sweden,

Portugal Baiaria, Saxony, %Vurtemberg, Brazils,
Hanover, and Baden ; the four Vice-Presidents of
the National Assembly, the three questors, General
Changarnier, M. Thiers, Generals Oudinot Duke de
Reggio, Baraguay- d'Hilliers, de Saint-Priest, and Car-
relet ; the Governor of the Bank, the Prefect of the
Seine, the President of the Municipal Council, the Duke
de Noailles, the Duke de Mortemart, the Duke de
Broglie, the Duke Albert de Luynes, the Duke de
Montebello, Count Mole, M. de Montalembert, M.
Odilon Barrot, M. Berryer, MM. C. Dupin, de Vati-
mesnil, Admiral Cecille, Victor Lefranc, Gustave de
Beaumont, de Rinusat, de Maleville, Passy, Lan-
juinais, &c. A band of military music played during
the dinner. At the dessert, M. Durist rose, and, in
an emphatic voice, gave the following toast :
"To the President of the Republic,—To the elect of
the 10th December, whose high mission, conjointly with
the elect of the 13th May, is to defend and to make pre-
vail against the spirit of irreligion and anarchy, the great
principles of law and morality, on which the essential
of der of human society, the authority of Governments,
the atcuri,y of private transactions, and the good faith of
pacific relations between civilised nations repose. To
the President of the Republic."

The PRESIDENT of the Republic replied—
" Monsieur le President,—l return you thanks for
having procured me a second time the pleasure of feting
the anniversary of my election in the midst of the re-
presentatives of France and of the members of the di-
plomatic body. It affords another solemn opportunity for
congratulating ourselves on the repose which the country
now enjoys. But this quiet has also its danger. Perils
cause union—security division. May welfare, therefore,
not be produced without carrying within itself a germ of
dissolution? Nothing would be more worthy of the
public powers than to give an example of the contrary.
May, therefore, our union continue in the calm, as it was
formed during the tempest. To the concord of the pub-
lic powers! To the National Assembly! to its Honour
able President!"

It is said that M. TRIERS is greatly annoyed at
the formation of the new club of which Count MOLE
is president, and considers it as an act of rebellion
against his authority as leader of the reactionary
party.
Lord BROUGHAM has arrived in Paris from Cannes.

The Journal de Toulouse says :—" The police ar-
rested on the 18th, on the Place de la Capitole, Cap-
tain TRISTANY, a Carlist refugee, who has been long
lying concealed in Toulouse. Some important papers
were seized on his person. Several other Spaniards
of distinction are waiting here in prison to be sent off
into the interior.

The Ilioniteur publishes an order, by the Minister
of Finances, appointing a Commission to examine all
questions connected with metallic currency. The
Commission is composed of M. Magne, Under-Secre-
tary of State, MM. Thiers, Cronin, Prosper de Chas-
seloup-Laubat, representatives of the people; d'Ar-
gout, Governor of the Bank; Bethmont, de St.
Aignan, councillors of state; Persil, formerly Presi•
dent of the Commission of the Mint ; Pelouze, Presi-
dent of that Commission ; Montannier, Director du
Mouvement General des Fonda, and M. Lemaitre,
sub-director of the srme department. The Minister
will act as President, and M. Lemaitre as Secretary.'
The Buurse was crowded to excess, but there
was not much business transacted except in railroad
shares. The Five per Cents.. opened at 95f. 40c.,
and closed at 951. 30c. ; the Three per Cents.
closed at 57f. 65c.; Orleans Railroad Shares,
8451. ; Roueo, 662 f. 50c.; Havre, 266 f. 25c. ; Great
Northern, 477 f. 50c. ; Avignon, 1961. 250.; Vier-
zon, 410 f.; Paris and Strasburg, 358 f. 75c.;
Tours and Nantes, 2481. 75c..
BUSINESS DOSE iN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT TEE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, DEC. 19.

Anglo-Italian (late Italian and Austrian), 214—Boulogne
and Amiens, 9—Central of France (Orleans andVierzon), 16%
—Dutch Rhenish, 3% ex div--Luxembourg, 11/6---Ditto,
278 —Namur and Liege, Bj2—Northern of France, 15;—
Orleans and Bordeaux, 23 .-Paris and Rouen, 2634—Par,s
and Strasbourg, 914 —Rouen and Havre, 11—Sambre and
Meuse, 33k—Tours and Nantes, 5 ex div.

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 14th have arrived.

The Minister of Finances on that day presented to
the Chamber of Deputies the budget for 1851. The
budget of expenditure exhibits great economies. It
is 1,045 millions of reels, whereas for 1850 it was
1,201 millions. The amount fixed for the extraordi-
nary budget of 1851 is 224 millions of reels, which
sum constitutes the deficit of the Treasury, indepen-
dently of the sum required for the arrangement of the
debt, and which is not specified. Towards the deficit
it is proposed to apply the 41 millions of receipts in
excess over the expenditure, after discharging all the
claims of the ordinary budget.

MADRID BOLSA, DEC. 14.—The Three per Cents.,
34 15-16 ; Five per Cents , 12f. Exchange on Lon-
don, 50 35 paper.

GERMAN Y.

The following letter, addressed by the Prussian Mi-
nister to the German Governments, appears in the
Berlin journals of the lith inst.:—
" For many years the want of; and the desire for, a
thorough reform of the Constiiutn,n of the Germanic
Confederation 133 s most unmistakeably been manifested
throughout Germany. It is an acknowledged fact, and
it has been painfully felt by all the true and well-mean-
ing friends of the Fatherland, that the Chief Adminis-
tistive Board of the Germanic Confederation, which was

created by the Federal Constitution of 1815, answered
but in a very moderate degree to the claims which at
home as well as abroad were made upon its jurisdiction;
that it did not establish an intimate union of the Ger-
man states—that it failed to protect and foster great, ge-
nerous, or useful undertakings in Germany—and that,
with respect to foreign countries, it did not represent the
totality in BO energetic and decisive a manner as to
answer to the just demands of the mass of the intellec-
tual and material forces of Germany, and to those obli-
gations which the reminiscence of the past imposes upon
our country.
" The Governments of the Germanic Confederation
have deplored these shortcomings, and expressed their
desire to see a revision of the Constitutioe of the Confe-
deration carried into effect. But various attempts to im-
prove the existing state of things were void of success on
account of the difficulty and greatness of the task to
create new and satisfactory institutions. The reason of
this failure is partly that the Federal Constitution of
1815 offers but a very unsatisfactory handle to any at-
tempts at organic changes, and partly that the conse-
quences of the insufficiency of the Constitution had not
Set been practically telt to their full extent.
" The events of the year 1848 have entirely removed
the latter part of that reason. We need not here show
how unequal in that time the Federal Constitution was
to the task of resisting the storm and protecting the in-
dividual St.stes. It was at once suspended; the foun-
dations of the Confederation were shaken, and the
state of disunion which was then created continues to
this day. All attempts to remedy this dieuuion have
proved abortive. _ _ _

" Among all the convulsions and the variety of for-
mations which the affairs of Germany have displayed
during the lest year, his Majesty's Government has
still adhered to the conviction that the revision of t%e
Constitution, and the regeneration of the Gertnanic Con-
federation, must proce.d from an agreement and the
free consent of all German Governments.

" Impressed with the same conviction, the Govern-
ment of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria joins
with us in an invitation to all the members of the Con-
federacy to meet for the purpose of a free consultation on
this most important question.
" As a proper means for the purpose of bringing
about the requisite harmony among the German Go-
vernments, we have agreed on holding Ministerial
conferences, which have in similar cases proved effective.
" In conjunction with the Austrian Cabinet we there-
fore desire all German Governments to send their Pieta,
pntentiaries to Dresden on the 23d instant, and to pro.
vide them with sufficient instructions, that we may soon
be enabled to open the conferences, and tbar, while we

maintain the principle of the indissolubility of the Ger-
mania. Confederation, we may proceed, by free and
mature conbultations, to revise and improve its fuuda-
mental laws.

" We are confident that these consultations will lead
to an arrangement which will secure an energetic and
comprehensive representation to the interests of the
totality (Gesammtheil), a wholesome and salutary deve-
lopment to the internal welfare of our common country,
while Germany, thus newly strengthened, and fortified,
will obtain a suitable place in the system of European
states, and that consequently the just wishes of the
nation will receive full satisfaction, without any impedi-
ment to the free and unrestrained movements (according
to their necessities) of the individual members of the
Conf. deration.

" The reiult of the consultation will afterwards re-
ceive a solemn sanction by the assent of all the members
of the Confederation (which in their totality are alone
entitled to develop and reform the Constitution of the
Confederation), and it will be publi•,hed as a fundamental
law by the chief Federal authority which will be created
in the interim.

" His Majesty the King, our most gracious Lord,
having instructed me to issue a'i invitation to the above.
mentioned conferences, wishes, at the tmme time, to ex-
press a hope that the precarious state of affairs in the
German Fatherland will be remedied on the old accus-
tomed plan of mutual confidence and pacific agreement,
and that all the members of the Confederation will iu a
federal epirit join with him in effecting his purpose. •
" Berlin, DGC. 12." MANTEUFFEL.

The lndipendance of Brussels says :—" Our last
letters from Thrlin call attention to a question which
cannot fail to be treated at length at Dresden—that of
the annexation of the provinces of Austria to the Ger-
manic Confederation. It appears that England and
France oppose the annexation, which would pro-
foundly modify the state of things created by the
treaties of 1815. But, as the non-German provinces
of Prussia were annexed in 1848, Austria, if not able
to obtain the admission of the whole of her provinces
into the Confederation, at least desires to annex, in
addition to her German provinces, a portion of her
non-German provinces, equal to those possessed by
Prussia; or in the event of thisnot being granted, she
requires that the non-German provinces of Prussia
shall cease to be attached to the Confederation. The
Liberal party seems disposed to support the latter
proposition, in order that Prussia may have all the
advantages of a power independent of the Confedera-
tion, whilst, at the same time, she enjoys all those
which arise from her position as a member of it."
General THUMEN has been appointed Prussian
Commissioner to act in Holstein.
The Austrian and Prussian Commissioners have
arrived at Cassel, and the Bavarian troops were pre-
paring to enter the city on the 17th. General VON
GROEBEN had left the Electorate and- retired to
Paderborn.