The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-09-12 00:00:00

STANDARD,

NTTq

Libition) to the

I` PRICES consistent a►iih the most PERFECT

EFFICIENCY and SECURITY.
GROUP OF MILNERS' FIRST-CLASS " HOLDFAST" AND FIRE-RESISTING SAFES
TEE STRONGEST WILOIIGHT-IRON SAvv.--
OF VARIOU

niT SAFE(

ea by powerful, I
arrying out the FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

...----.41,.-

MONDAY

MORNING

THE past week has been distinguished by a circum-

6rly as unusual in English annals as it has been

gular in the domestic history of our deservedly popular
The PRINCE CONSORT, withdrawing himself
for a brief period from the family circle, and devolving all

Sovereign

Le of his

royal partner, has been engaged for the greater portion of
the week in familiar and friendly intercourse with the
ruler of the French people. On Tuesday morning, PRINCE
ALBERT arrived at Boulogne, where he was met by Louis
NAPOLEON, and welcomed by the populace with great en-
thusiasm. The EMPEROR paid a high:compliment to the
PRINCE CONSORT, and through him to the QUEEN, and
to the British people, by coming down to the quay to
meet the PRINCE—a courtesy which on the previous day
bad been withheld from the KING or PORTUGAL on his
arrival. The meeting between the EMPEROR and his
royal guest was marked by all the stateliness of court
ceremony, softened by the bland amenities of cordial wel-
come; the friendly greetings were participated in and
reciprocated by the suites of the distinguished individuals,
and greatly heightened by the warmth of feeling evinced
by the people. How singularly provocative of moral
speculation was this meeting and its concomitants. On

the one hand, the head of Britain's

family, on the

other, the man who from the most unpromising of posi-

tions has raised himself to be supreme

and arbiter in the affairs of Europe,

utmost rein to his impatient fancy, would, ten years ago,
have ventured to conjecture such an elevation for the
exile who owed his personal freedom to a residence upon
our island, and whose fortunes were fallen so low that he
in a third-class London

a himsel

If the meeting of these distinguished in-

4.V MAWS. MI i uesuay was OI itsen an event peculiarly
Suggestive of the fickleness of Fortune, Wednesday's pro-
ceedings were calculated to be doubly so. On that day a
grand military review was made in the camp at St. Omer,
ch was witnessed by both ;
Of PRINCE ALBERT'S visit

he immed

,e vicinity

was to be present at this great military spectacle. The
visit of the PRINCE CONSORT of England to the camp at
St. Omer is a fact significant of a wondrous change of
popular feeling in both countries. Numerous individuals
in France and England are still living, and remember
with equally acute, though very different feelings, the
interest attached to an army encamped on the heights
of Boulogne, under command of the first NAPOLEON, with
the avowed intention, whether sincere or not, matters
little, of inflicting on us a hostile invasion, and many
a heart beat high on either side of the channel in
cotemplation of the coming strife. What might have been
the emotions produced on that commander it is difficult to
conceive, if made aware that, within the brief space of
time occupied by one generation of men, from the period
of his own death, an army should be assembled on the self-
same ground, destined to act in unison with those whom
he considered it his peculiar mission to humble and destroy.
Nay, more : that one of his own family, placed on that
throne which he had reared amidst carnage, and whose
unstable foundations he had endeavoured to cement in
blood, should receive, as his most welcome and most
honoured guest, the royal representative of those who
drove him from his place of pride. That the army should
be rejoiced in, and its perfections be considered sources of
safety and of power by those whom he looked on as the
natural enemies of France. " A change" has, indeed,

" come o'er the

ipirit of men's dreams" since

Camps, armies, fetes, and royal

those days,

greetings are without

doubt interesting and impressive facts ; but, as mere facts,
they are but of little value. When viewed as the sub-
stantial indications of power and good feeling, directed to
a common and beneficial object, they assume new and more
important aspects ; and looked at in this light the French
military fetes of the past week are invested with an im-
e rarely attained by the interchange of civilities,