The Emperor of Austria’s reply to the strange Happy New-Year 
sent over to him from Paris on the part of the “Dutch cousin to 
the battle of Austerlitz,” and the virtuous Emmanuel’s opening 
speech addressed to the Sardinian Chambers,'*° have by no means 
contributed to allay the war alarm pervading Europe. On all the 
centers of the money market the barometer points to “stormy.” 
The King of Naples has all of a sudden grown magnanimous and 
anti-Russian, setting free batches of political prisoners, exiling 
Poério with his associates, and refusing to Russia a coaling depot 
in the Adriatic; quarrels with the Tedeschi, and the crusade 
against the smokers of Government cigars continued at Milan, 
Lodi, Cremona, Brescia, Bergamo, Parma and Modena, while at 
Pavia the course of University studies has been suspended by 
Government order; Garibaldi, summoned to Turin, has been 
intrusted with the duty of reorganizing the National Guard; a new 
corps of about 15,000 chasseurs, is forming at Turin, and the 
fortifications of Casale are pushed forward with the utmost 
activity. An Austrian army of about 30,000 men, a complete corps 
d’armée (the 3d), will by this. time have marched into the 
Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom, and Count Gyulay, a general of the 
Radetzky school, and a man of Haynau instincts, has already 
reached Milan to take the reins of power from the hands of the 
gentle, benevolent, but weak Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian. In 
France, military movements and counter-movements are the 
standing order, while the Emperor affects an immense zeal in 
trying experiments with the new cannon at Vincennes. The 
Prussian Government, finally, has initiated its new system of 

The War Prospect in Europe 155 

liberty by asking the Chambers for money to augment the 
standing army and the conversion of the Landwehr into an 
appendage of the line.'*’ With such clouds visible on the horizon 
of Europe, one may feel astonished at the comparatively inconsid- 
erable decline in the quotations of the London Stock Exchange, 
which generally indicates the pulsations of European society more 
exactly than the monetary observatories of Paris and the rest of 
the Continent. 

In the first instance, the shrewd observers of the London Stock 
Exchange were not quite averse to considering Napoleon’s 
New-Year’s freak a mere stock-jobbing maneuver on the part of 
their august ally. In fact, the French securities once sent down, 
people rushed headlong into Baal’s temple to get rid of the public 
debt, Crédit Mobilier,'°’ and railway shares for whatever they 
would fetch. Then part of the speculators for a rise being done 
for, there followed all at once, on the 6th of January, a slight rally 
on the Paris Bourse, in consequence of the rumor set afloat to the 
effect that a Government note in the Moniteur was to take out the 
sting of “his Majesty’s” apostrophe to the Austrian Minister. Such 
a note, indeed, made its appearance on Friday, Jan. 7; then the 
funds went up, and a lot of fellows, known to be familiars of the 
Tuileries, realised on that very Friday extraordinary profits. Thus 
these gentlemen reimbursed themselves for the expenses of their 
New-Year’s presents, in the cheapest way possible. Now, it seems 
that a similar conspiracy brewing at London, was baffled not by 
any uncommon shrewdness on the part of the British monetary 
mind, but by its secret sway over some of the financial managers 
of the Elysian menus plaisirs.* However, the comparative steadiness 
of the British securities is principally due to another circumstance 
less flattering to Louis Napoleon, but more characteristic of the 
state of Europe. No confessor knows more exactly the vulnerable 
parts of a fair penitent’s heart than do the hard-cash men of 
Chapel street, Lombard street and Threadneedle street know 
where the shoe pinches the European potentates. They know that 
Russia wants a loan of about ten millions sterling; that France, 
despite the prospective surplus of a budget, always conjugated in 
the future tense, is badly in want of money; that Austria is looking 
out for an instalment of at least six or eight millions sterling; that 
little Sardinia is eager for a loan, not only to undertake a new 
Italian crusade, but to pay the old debts contracted through the 
Crimean war; and that altogether bills to the amount of thirty 

a Small pleasures, also pocket money.— Ed. 

millions sterling must be drawn by the crown-bearers and 
sword-bearers, upon the English purse, before armies can move, 
blood be let, and the boisterous voice of cannon roar. Now, to run 
through all these monetary transactions, two months’ respite at 
least is required; so that, quite apart from military considerations, 
if there is to be war, it must be delayed until Spring. 

Yet it would be a great mistake to rush to the conclusion that by 
their dependence on the good pleasure of peace-loving capitalists, 
the war-hounds will certainly be prevented from breaking loose. 
With the rate of interest ranging hardly at 2'/2 per cent, with 
more than forty millions of gold stagnating in the vaults of the 
Banks of England and France, and with a general distrust in 
commercial speculation, Satan himself, if he were to open a loan 
for a new campaign, would, after some prudish delays and a few 
sanctimonious conferences, succeed in selling his scrip at a 
premium. 

The circumstances which may put off the European war are the 
very same circumstances which push on to such an issue. After her 
splendid diplomatic successes in Asia, Russia is anxious to recover 
her predominance in Europe. In fact, as little Sardinia’s throne- 
speech was revised at Paris, so Bonaparte’s (the Little) '** New- 
Year’s boutade* was only the echo of a watchword indicated at St. 
Petersburg. With France and Sardinia in the leading strings of St. 
Petersburg, Austria threatened, England insulated and Prussia 
vacillating, Russian influence would lord it supreme in the case of 
war, for some time at least. She might keep aloof; weaken France 
and Austria by internecine contest, and in the end “improve” the 
difficulties of the latter power, that now stops her way to the 
South and opposes her Slavonian propaganda. Sooner or later, the 
Russian Government would have to interfere; its internal troubles 
might be diverted by a foreign war, and the Imperial power, by 
success abroad, become enabled to break down the nobiliary 
opposition at home. But, on the other hand, the financial pressure 
engendered by the Crimean campaign would be trebled; the 
nobility, appealed to in such an emergency, would gather new 
arms of attack and defense; while the peasantry, with promises not 
yet fulfilled before their eyes, exasperated by new delays, new 
conscriptions and new taxes, might be driven to violent commo- 
tions. As to Austria, she is afraid of war; but, of course, may be 
forced into it. Bonaparte, in his turn, has very probably arrived at 
the just conclusion, that now is an occasion for playing his trump 

a Sally.— Ed. 

The War Prospect in Europe 157 

card. Aut Caesar aut nihil.* The mock glories of the Second Empire 
are vanishing fast away, and blood is wanted to cement that 
monster imposture anew. And in what better character than that 
of an Italian liberator, and under what more favorable cir- 
cumstances than those of England’s forced neutrality, Russia’s 
secret support, and Piedmont’s confessed vassalage, could he hope 
ever to succeed? But on the other hand, the Ecclesiastical party in 
France is violently opposed to the unholy crusade; the middle class 
reminds him of L’Empire c’est la paix'**; the very circumstance of 
England and Prussia being for the present bound to neutral 
attitudes would transform them into arbiters during the progress 
of the war; and any defeat on the plains of Lombardy would ring 
the funeral knell of the Brummagem Empire.