The Ambassador in London of the North German Confederation may possibly say, "I think the King of Prussia would prefer treating for peace with the Imperial Government rather than with the Republic." If so, I shall start to-morrow for Wilhelmshöhe, after having paid a visit to the Empress. The following are the propositions I intend to submit to the Emperor: (1) That the Empress-Regent ought not to quit French territory; (2) That the Imperial fleet _is_ French territory; (3) That the fleet which greeted Her Majesty so enthusiastically on its departure for the Baltic, or at least a portion of it, however small, be taken by the Regent for her seat of government, thus enabling her to go from one to another of the French ports where she can count upon the largest number of adherents, and so prove that her government exists both _de facto_ and _de jure_. Further, that the Empress-Regent issue from the fleet four proclamations--viz. to foreign governments, to the fleet, to the army, and to the French people. It will suffice to quote two of those suggested proclamations:-- To foreign governments! To firmly insist upon the fact that the Imperial Government is the _actual_ government, as it is the government by right. To the fleet! That just as the Emperor remained to the last in the midst of his army, sharing the chances of war, so also does the Regent, the only executive power legally existing, come with gladness to trust her political fortune to the Imperial fleet. There followed a voluminous screed of irrelevant dissertation. Regnier confessedly made no way with the Empress. He saw, indeed, Madame Le Breton on the 14th, but only to be told, in language worthy of a patriot sovereign, that "Her Majesty's feeling was that the interests of France should take precedence of those of the dynasty; that she would rather do nothing than incur the suspicion of having acted from an undue regard for dynastic interests, and that she has the greatest horror of any step likely to bring about a civil war." Those high-souled expressions ought to have given definite pause to Regnier's importunity; but that busybody was indefatigable. A second letter to Madame Le Breton for the Empress simply elicited from the gentlemen of her suite the information that Her Majesty, having read his communications, had expressed the greatest horror of anything approaching a civil war. A final letter from him, containing the following significant passage:-- I myself, or some other person, ought already to have been secretly and confidentially in communication with M. de Bismarck; our conditions for peace must be more acceptable than those to which the _soi-disant_ Republican Government may have agreed; every action of theirs ought to be turned to our advantage--we ourselves must _act_,