The Emperor Napoleon's Speech.
THE Emperor's speech has set all Europe agog. It is rather pitiful to see how this one man cows the continent, and not merely the continent, but Great Britain as well. His proposal of a Congress is certainly a master stroke, both as an illustration of his power virtually to dictate terms to Europe, and also as a means of increasing that power in the future. It is not likely that Europe will reject the appeal. The Congress will doubtless meet; but it will only meet either to record submissively the decisions of the Emperor of the French, or else to dispute and to separate, leaving everything unsettled. And then? Why, then—the Emperor gives fair warning of it—there will be war! The Spectator deduces this result in the following forcible words: 'A careful perusal of his whole speech, so far as it bears on Poland, will, we believe, leave this impression on the mind. The Emperor has determined with inflexibility which the public always attributes to him, but which only manifests just before his blow, to set Poland free. So clear is this one decision that he goes out of his way to afford to the insurrection a kind of official sanction, as one which "by its duration has become a national movement." If this freedom can be accomplished by Congress, well—if not, it must be by war; but by what war he has not quite decided. It might be possible to revive Poland by finding for Russia compensation in Turkey, and the Emperor, resolved on his end, hesitates as to his road. Is it to be war for Poland alone, or for Poland and the re-settlement of the whole Eastern question? The English alliance will, in all probability, decide his course, and the net result of his speech is, we submit sufficiently clear—a Congress of Paris to erase the memory of that of Vienna and "reconstruct the edifice," or a general war in the spring.'—Dr. McClintock.