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f LONDON CORRESPONDENCE. ]

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THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. !

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THE SPANISH MARRIAGE. Among the strange spectacles which strike people's imaginations, writes the Paris Times correspondent, the Spanish Royal Family now furnishes one. A young King, placed on the throne by the greatest and most unexpected good fortune, at the most propitious time for long remaining there.ia about to wed her whom his heart had chosen during the troubled youth he spent in exile. Few reigns have ever begun under brighter auspices. Suddenly proclaimed, without bloodshed, without conflict, the young King ascended the throne at the moment when a cruel and insensate adversary was shedding the blood of his pretended subjects under the pretence of being a saviour of divi^o right. His presence sufficed to efface the rivalries o* generals and to rally round him all the forces of cue country, to give his army cohesion and courage, and to strike a mortal blow at the insurrection. His power based it- self on the pacification of the Peninsula, on internal peace, on the union of parties, on the comparative repose which wins over nations exhausted by long re- volutions. After securing repose for his country, the young King:, amiable, reflecting, a) most austere, wishing to impart to the Rol al Palace of Madrid the sobriety distinguishing1 himself, and remembering the young cousin who shared and alleviated his exile, seeks her in marriage, obtains the approval of his advisers, Parliament., peop!e, and of Europe, and prepares to lead her joyfully to the altar. Assuredly, if a bu.nan being could seem perfectly bappy, it would be Alfonso XII.; yet even this younsr King, for whom all Spain 13 planning nuptial fetes, has his cloud on the horizon, and when his thoughts turn to the Hotel Basilewski, his mother's residence, they are tinged with bitterness. Queen Isabella, since her last return to France, has been startling the world. She has discovered a means cf scandalising the city least easily scandalised, and has furbished the strange spectacle of a Queen and a mother lavishing testimonies of the tenderest friendship on the man who for years kept up civil war in Spain, stigmatised her son as a usurper, and shrank from nothing in order to overturn that son's power. It was she who first called on the Duchess of Madrid, and greeted Don Oarlos with the title of Majesty." It was she who received him and his family at her table. It was she who seated her- self at the Pretender's table, with Trietani on her right hand-Tristani, whose mere name fills Spain with horror. Six or seven times she exchanged visits with Don Oarlos, and then protested against the imputation of breach of duty. She still persists in these strange ways. After having thus wounded every Spanish heart, she claims to present in person to the Princess Mercedes the Royal mantle she has had embroidered for her, and to give it to a Madonna if prevented from carrying it herself. Now, it is use- less blinking the fact that Queen Isabella's presence at her son's marriage is regarded with positive appre- hension, that neither her husband nor her mother mean to go with her, and that every effort is being made to prevent her journey. Heie the matter at present rests, and so great is the perplexity that the Spanish Ambassador at Paris does not yet knew whether he can attend his sovereign's marriage without risk of his departure being followed by some fresh demonstra- tion here, or without the Queen, abandoned to her caprices, starting for Madrid to carry thither the trouble of which her pnwence almost would be the signal. Is it not strange that while Europe is absorbed by the gravest questions, while East and West are rest- less, while the personification of modern Italian unity is about to be interred, while Spain is counting on an era of tranquillity to be opened up by the King's marriage, this banished Queen should force Spanish statesmen, her son, her friends, the country she inhabits, to be occupied with her strange caprices, tc condescend to numberless petty precautions and stratagems, with the view of preventing her from making some fresh rent in the Royal mantle which has fallen from her own shoulders, and which she would fain prevent her son from wearing with dignity ? King Alfonso's marriage will, it is expected, be postponed, on account of the King of Italy's death, till the 2nd of February. The contract was read in the Cortes. The State gives no dotation to the Queen, but accords her a pension of 250,000 pesetas in the event of her surviving the King. The deputies will go to Aranjuez to congratulate Princess Mercedes.

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|"A STRANGE AND HAPPY FAMILY."

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A LIVERPOOL SALVAGE CASE.

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WAR ITEMS.

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