The New York herald., 1869-08-25
The Eastern Mission Of the Empress
Euycnie.


Euycnie.
The ocean telegram has announced the de-
parture Of the Empress of the French on
Monday, the 23d instant, on her Eastern tour.
Our Paris correspondent had already informed
us that the Empress Eugene is expected to
arrive on the 3Oth of September at Constanti-
nople, where the palace destined to be occu-
pied by her is being fitted up with Oriental
splendor She will remain at Constantinople
ten days for the ytetes to be given in her honor.
Towards the 10th of October she will visit
Smyrna, where, if we mistake not, her Scotch
grandfather, Mr.. Fitzpatrick, was American
Consul during three Presidential adminlstra-
tions The dates of her subsequent excursions
are not yet decided upon up to the departure
for the Inauguration of the Suez Canal on the
18th of November. The Empress will be ac-
companied on her tour by the Prince and
Princess Murat, by three ladies of honor and
two chamberlains.
For the celebration Of the opening of the
Suez Canal--an event pregnant with mOmen-
tous political and commercial consequences
the Viceroy of Egypt has made the most ex-
tensive preparations. The Empress Eugenie
will doubtless be the cynosure Of all eyes on
that memorable occasion. The magnificent
historical scene Of which she will be
the central figure will forcibly call to
mind the judicial combat which the genius
of Sir Walter Scott has painted in indelible
colors as the cause of an ''assemblage of va
rious nations at the Diamond of the Desert"
not far from the locality where the opening of
the Suez Canal is to be celebrated and as
having taken place in the presence of Queen
Berengaria, Edith Plantaganet and their Of
tendants, a bevy of yelled Eastern beauties,
the Archduke of Austria, the Grand Master Of
the Templars, Richard Ceur de Lion and Sa-
ladin himself with his turbaned host. A ban
quet similar to that which the Soldan offered
to the princes of Christendom after that CON-
bat, In the most gorgeous fashion of the East,
with carpets of the richest stuff and luxurious
cushions, with cloth of gold and silver. superb
embroidery in arabesque, shawls of cashmere,
muslins of India, unfolded in all their splendor,
with different sweetmeats, ragouts edged with
RICE colored in various manners, and all other
niceties of Eastern cookery; 'lambs roasted
whole, game and poultry dressed in piaus,
piled in vessels of gold and silver and porce-
lain, and intermixed with large mazers of
sherbet, cooled in snow and ice from the cav
erns of Mount Lebanon" such banquet will
probably be prepared by the Viceroy of Egypt,
supplemented with all the refnements of
French and English cookery, of which he has
lately learned to be an excellent Judge,
and offered by him to his European
guests. 1t is even possible-so great
changes having been gradually wrought
since the age Of the Crusades-that Ismail
Pacha may not so modestly as Saladin
object to receiving the thanks Of Empress
Eugene for her princely reception. Saladin
declined the invitation to receive the thanks Of
Queen Berengaria, because, he said to royal
Richard, ''the blood Of the East flows not so
temperately In the presence of beauty as that
ur yuur land. wnar satin the BOOK Itself
Her eye Is as the edge of the sword Of the
prophet. Who shall look upon it?" But the
Empress Eugene may not so easily as the
Queen Berengaria ''content herself with
seeing and laying aside the still more exquisite
pleasure of being seen." The innovations,
however, which this crusade Of modern civili-
zation, headed by the Empress of the French,
may introduce into Oriental etiquette, are In
significant in comparison with those which her
mission to the East may directly or indirectly
introduce into the political relations Of the
Western and the Eastern world. We shall
therefore watch with interest the progress of
her tour to the East and the development of
the results to which 1t may ultimately lead
| (seflvakur0 NI0uu,nents.