KING LEOPOLD REPORTS PROGRESS.
THE King of the Belgians opened his Chambers last week, and it is to be regretted that King Leopold's excellent speech has been so incorrectly translated by the London newspapers. No wonder that Lord Clarendon complains of the inadequate way in which the journalists render his despatches. An English dramatic author, hurried in his rapine, could hardly have adapted a French speech more clumsily than it has been done for our papers. We subjoin a literal translation:
"Gentlemen,
"I am charmed to meet you again. When we separated, you were so kind as to express your entire satisfaction with the marriage I told you I had then in view for my son, the Duke of Brabant. I need not inform you that the match has since come off, because I do not suppose you will easily forget the portentous (effroyable) disturbance we made about it. But you will be happy to hear that I have taken Mary Henrietta of Austria and her husband over to England, and that our charming friend and relative Queen Victoria was quite pleased with the bride, and considers Brabant a fortunate young fellow.
"It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to say that it was not merely, or chiefly, to introduce a young wife to a young matron that I endured the perilous voyage from Ostend to Portsmouth. You will do your King more justice.
"Allied with the House of Austria, I found in that marriage the strongest reason why my voice should be heard in England at a conjuncture (crise) when Austria needed an advocate there. But this is not all. You know how long and how sedulously I have laboured to get the Emperor Nicholas to accredit an ambassador from Russia to Belgium. His Majesty has, for years, disdained my request with Northern haughtiness (fierté), but, either for reasons of mine or his own, he has at last accorded the favour. Since that boon, it is well known to you that Russia has had only to ask and to have in Belgium. I was therefore doubly bound to undertake my English mission, charged as I was with the interests of Austria and of Russia.
"That the Prince Consort of England and myself retired into the shooting field together—for the Sovereign of England has a certain straightforwardness (droiture) which makes it difficult to urge diplomatic considerations in her hearing—you may have learned. If I alluded to the danger which might accrue to Saxe Gotha in the event of Russia, Austria, and Prussia not regarding its princes as their friends, I am sure the august sportsman to whom I addressed such a speculation will not have listened to me in vain. The friends of Mary Henrietta and of our newly-arrived ambassador have no reason to be dissatisfied with the effect I produced.
"I may therefore felicitate you, Gentlemen, and myself, on the perfect concord which exists between Russia, Austria, Saxe Gotha, and Belgium, and I am glad to add that the aged and accomplished prime minister of England, the good Aberdeen, fully concurs in the sentiments of those four powers.
"Details of your own finance and other topics affecting yourselves will be supplied by my Ministers, but I could not refrain from personally informing you of the quadruple alliance which I, and our charming Mary Henrietta, have done so much to cement, and which I trust you will remember should we ask for any little addition to the estimates.
"That the blessing of, &c."