EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 298, 28 August 1860, Page 3

EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

( From the Home Ne-uis.)

FRANCE. All due formalities having been gone through with respect to the decree for the annexation of Savoy and Nice, the event was celebrated by a grand fete in the French capital on June 14. There were Te Deums, a review and^illuminations. At a Council of Ministers, held on June 21, at Fontainebleau, under the presidency of the Emperor, M. Thouvenel, Minister for-Fo-reign affairs^ feUdlhe circular note which the French Government has adrressed to the powers who have signed the final act 6f Vienna, in order to demand their recognition of the new settlement of the French frontiers resulting from the accomplished fact of the Annexation. This note summarily recalls the circumstances under which the annexation was accomplished, viz.— the spontaneous cession of those provinces by the King of Sardinia, and the free expression of the wishes of the inhabitants by universal suffrage. M. Thouvenel expresses his confidence that such an act, accomplished in conformity with the generally admitted principles of public right, and international law, will obtain the adhesion of all Europe; the more so because France is ready to renew before the European Areopagus the assurance that she intends to assume the obligations resulting from article 92 of the filial Act of Vienna, referring to the neutralised districts of Faucigny and Chablais. The note then proceeds thus:—" The good faith of the policy of France, and the friendly interest which she has always shown in regard to Switzerland, offer the best guarantees for the faithfuljaccomplishment of such an engagement." M. Thouvenel, in conclusion, hints that the court of the Tuileries will not consent to any lessen(amqindrissemeni) of any Savoyard territory in favor of Switzerland, although France accepts the European Conference on the question. [The above summary of the note of M. Thouvenel comes to us from Paris. It will be observed from our Pai> liamentary report that Lord John Russell has impugned the correctness of the summary in an important particular.' We hear from Berne that the receipt of the despatch has been already followed by a proposition' on thef'^art of theSwiss: Federal ; Government, which-shows the extent of the existing differences between France and Switzerland. Yet the Federal government, in this proposition evidently goes the utmost length of conceseion which it deems compatible with the safety ahd the established rights of the Republic. It now waives the demand of the whole of Chablais and Faucigny, and only claims so much of territory: along the southern shore of the Lake as will keep the French troops at all points, two hours' march from the water's edge. This proposition has been made with a view to the assembling of the European Conference, to which France—always, however, provided the integrity of Savoy be hot tampered with—has ceased to object.]