The Sun. — 1868-09-03 (London, England)

VII. during the first Empire. There was a grand banquet on the evening of the arrival of the Count and Countess. Covers were laid for sixty-eight. MM. Rouher and Pinard were honoured with a seat at the Imperial table. After the banquet the guests assembled in the theatre, where " On ne Badine pas avec l'amour" was represented ; and after the play came supper, the festivities of the evening terminating at about two o'clock. The gossips here can make nothing of it. Their alliance rumours have become flat, stale, and unprofitable, and there is no other explanation to be given. The proposition to supply 40,000 men to hold Italy in check in case of a European war was made last year by the Queen of Spain, but the Emperor neither accepted nor declined it. There must still be many objections to the acceptance of such a proposal. The task of keeping down insurrection in Spain may possibly entail the most onerous obligations upon the Emperor, if he fall in with the terms of the alliance as hitherto proposed. On the other hand, is it likely that Spain, with so much disaffection at home, will be able to render much assistance abroad ?  A letter from Brussels says that the condition of the Empress Charlotte is still far from showing signs of improvement. The malady has entered upon a new stage. The violent attacks of delirium are less frequent, and have given place to periods of lethargic slumber, which are only interrupted at long intervals. The unhappy princess is under the influence of the delusion that she is pursued in a forest by knights and savages who wish to murder her. A souvenir of Mexico, beyond doubt. The state of the heir to the Belgian throne,  the Duke of Brabant, also gives rise to the greatest anxiety. The doctors are very gloomy, there is no improvement manifest, and altogether the prospect of the Prince's recovery is considered doubtful.  The judicial inquiry at Nimes is causing great excitement there. The public ovations, of which M. Jules Favre is the centre, have been marked by extraordinary enthusiasm. The excitement is considered great even for that exciteable district. The first two sittings were entirely occupied by the hearing of some sixty witnesses,who were pretty unanimous in their testimony. They clearly proved that the meeting was private, the doors being strictly closed; that the police got in by force; that remontrances and representations of the nature of the meeting were of no avail; that the soldiers, who had been concealed in some neighbouringhouse, suddenly followed the police, and that the electors were turned out by force, struck with the butt ends of muskets, and one of them wounded. Against these witnesses, which included a member of the Council General of the Gard, there was but the testimony of the Commissioner of Police and his subordinates. These maintained that the meeting was quite open, and that they entered without using force. As to M. Sagnier, who was wounded, the officials state that the injury was caused simply through his indiscretion. He ran himself against one of the soldier's bayonets. A fine speech from M. Jules Favre has scattered these assertions to the winds. Even an arrest, he maintained, could not justify these extremities; the bayonets ought not to have been displayed ; and the blows from the butt ends of the muskets admitted of no:sophistical explanation. The decision, however, has been in favour of the police. The judgment of the tribunal was to the effect that the meeting was public, that the police were obliged to u: e force to get in, and that the electors were subject to all the consequences of a breach of the law which prohibits public meetings within five days of an election. What is to be done in the case of a Government which draws a distinction between a public and a private meeting, and interprets it according to its own wishes? The noble army of martyrs increases. Two more journals have been condemned. Count•on Goltz is worse.