In the first place, and don’t let us endeavour to disguise it, they hate us. Not all the protestations of friendship, not all the wisdom of Lord Palmerston, not all the diplomacy of our distinguished plenipotentiary, Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer--and, let us add, not all the benefit which both countries would derive from the alliance--can make it, in our times at least, permanent and cordial. They hate us. The Carlist organs revile us with a querulous fury that never sleeps; the moderate party, if they admit the utility of our alliance, are continually pointing out our treachery, our insolence, and our monstrous infractions of it; and for the Republicans, as sure as the morning comes, the columns of their journals thunder out volleys of fierce denunciations against our unfortunate country. They live by feeding the natural hatred against England, by keeping old wounds open, by recurring ceaselessly to the history of old quarrels; and as in these we, by God’s help, by land and by sea, in old times and late, have had the uppermost, they perpetuate the shame and mortification of the losing party, the bitterness of past defeats, and the eager desire to avenge them. A party which knows how to _exploiter_ this hatred will always be popular to a certain extent; and the imperial scheme has this, at least, among its conditions. Then there is the favourite claptrap of the ‘natural frontier.’ The Frenchman yearns to be bounded by the Rhine and the Alps; and next follows the cry, ‘Let France take her place among nations, and direct, as she ought to do, the affairs of Europe.’ These are the two chief articles contained in the new imperial programme, if we may credit the journal which has been established to advocate the cause. A natural boundary--stand among the nations--popular development--Russian alliance, and a reduction of _la perfide Albion_ to its proper insignificance. As yet we know little more of the plan: and yet such foundations are sufficient to build a party upon, and with such windy weapons a substantial Government is to be overthrown!