_Hatchford, January 2nd._--The speech which Louis Napoleon addressed to the Imperial Guard the day before yesterday when they marched into Paris in triumph, gives reason for suspecting that the manifesto against Prussia in the 'Morning Post' was French, for there is no small correspondence between the speech and the article. In the article Prussia is openly threatened and told, if she will not join the allies in making war on Russia, the allies will make war upon her; in the speech the Guards are told to hold themselves in readiness and that a great French army will be wanted. Nothing is more within the bounds of probability than that the Emperor may determine, if he is obliged to make war, to make it for a French object, and on some enemy from whom a good spoil may be taken, a war which will gratify French vanity and cupidity, and which will therefore not be unpopular. He may think, and most probably not erroneously, that in the present temper of this country the people would be quite willing to let him do what he pleases with Prussia, Belgium, or any other part of the continent, if he will only concur with us in making fierce war against Russia. But though this I believe to be the feeling of the masses, and that their resentment against Prussia is so strong that they would rejoice at seeing another Jena followed by similar results, the minority who are elevated enough in life to reason and reflect will by no means like to see France beginning to run riot again, and while we have been making such an uproar about the temporary occupation of the Principalities and the crossing of the Pruth by Russia, that we should quietly consent to, nay, become accomplices in the passage of the Rhine and an aggression on Germany by France. The very possibility of this shows the necessity of putting an end to a war which cannot continue without so many and such perilous contingencies. Nothing in fact can exceed the complications in which we can hardly help being plunged, and the various antagonistic interests which will be brought into collision, creating perplexities and difficulties which it would require the genius of a Richelieu to unravel and compose. The earth under our feet may be mined with plots; we know not what any of the Great Powers are really designing; the only certainty for us is that we are going on blindly and obstinately spending our wealth and our blood in a war in which we have no interest, and in keeping Europe in a state of ferment and uncertainty the ultimate consequences of which it is appalling to contemplate. Clarendon showed me a letter from Francis Baring from Paris the other day, which told him that the Emperor wished to make peace, because he knew that France, with all her outward signs of prosperity, was unable to go on with the war without extreme danger, that she is in fact 'using herself up,' has been going on at a rate she cannot afford. [Sidenote: NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE.]