ever, recent examples of Conferences which have terminated in treaties, and that is why the distinction between the two appellations has ceased to be so absolute as once it was. The difference between a Nation and a State is rather a question of grammar than of forms; but it may as well be mentioned, so as to furnish the two examples of it which are always quoted by professors of international law. A State may be made up of several nations, as in the case of the Austrian Empire. A Nation may perhaps not constitute an independent State, as was the case in Italy before 1859. An Exequatur is an ordinance by which a sovereign authorises a foreign consul to discharge the functions which are confided to him. The form of exequaturs varies. In most countries it is a letter-patent signed by the sovereign and countersigned by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In others, the consul is simply informed that he is recognised as consul, as in Denmark; or the word exequatur is written on the back of his commission, as in Austria. An Act of Abdication may be in any form which the abdicator likes to use; the process is supposed to be so unpleasant that the publicists are kind enough not to add to its annoyances by imposing a general model for the use of departing monarchs. Charles Albert of Sardinia profited by this liberty to sign his withdrawal before a village notary, who was pleased to draft it in the technical Italian to which his avocations had accustomed him, just as if it had been the deed of sale of a manufactory of local cheese. Still, since Diocletian set the sad example, there have been so many royal resignations sixteen of reigning sovereigns during the last 300 years, from Charles the Fifth to -- Amadeus-that the authors, who are so precise on other points, really ought to consider it to be their disagreeable duty to provide a fixed wording for the declarations of departure of unsuccessful rulers. Manifestoes and Proclamations are written in the first person, and are signed by the sovereign who issues them; Declarations, on the contrary, are in the third person, and are signed by a Minister. We will finish this long list by the most curious fact of all. Letters of abolition, remission, or legitimation are sealed with green wax, because-so, at least, De Cussy tells us that colour expresses youth, honour, beauty, and especially liberty. It may, however, reasonably be doubted whether all these properties really belong to green sealingwax; for, if they did, there are ladies in the world who would employ it in large quantities. Examples of many other special forms might be added, but they would not be very useful, and would take up room, and, furthermore, the effort of discussing them with reverential gravity is too great to be continued. Before we go on to the larger features of the question, we must allude, however, to one blank in the great mass of types and illustrations which are laid before students in the treatises on forms. There positively exists no model for a declaration of war! The aggressive nation is absolutely free to choose the shape in which it will announce hostilities; it is bound by no practice and no precedent. It may send a herald in a tabard to blow a horn at the gates of its coming foe; or it may publish a manifesto to Europe full of commanding evidence that its adversary is altogether in the wrong, and declaring that, though it would give anything to remain at peace, it is really forced to fight against its will; or it may adopt any intermediate solution between these two, or no solution whatever, for it is no longer considered obligatory to formally declare war at all. It is a sign of the times that we should be drifting into utter negligence and bad manners on a point on which our ancestors were so reremarkably punctilious and polite. But, if the formalists permit us to commence combats without any particular warning to the other side, they make up for this omission by defining with the strictest care the classes and categories of war. On this element of the question their love of definition and analysis comes out in all its strength; they elaborate it with such completeness that they are able to indicate to us nineteen sorts of war! Until they are enumerated it is difficult to imagine what the nineteen differences may be; but here is the list itself, to prove that the number is correct. There may be wars of independence, insurrection, revolution, conquest, or intervention, and these sections are subdivided into offensive, defensive, or auxiliary; public, private, or mixed; perfect or imperfect; legal or illegal; religious or political; national or civil. That makes nineteen! As the French say, “We may take down the ladder after that;" no one will try to climb any higher in that direction. Letters of credence constitute a subject by themselves in the textbooks, and naturally fill a quantity of pages. There are two main species of them: they may be special, that is, for certain objects only; or general, which means that they extend to all sorts of negotiations. In either case they may be limited or unlimited; the combination of the two qualities of general and unlimited constitutes what are called pleins pouvoirs. There is not universal formula for them; but there are certain accepted general characters which are usually adopted-at all events, in Europe. Kluber tells us, with evident satisfaction at having so many Latin words to print, that they may be in the form of letters patent (in formâ patente), in which case they are "powers" properly so called (mandatum procuratorium); or they may be sealed (in formâ literarum), and then constitute lettres de créance (literæ fidei); or they may unite both these conditions in the same letter. Or again, as used to be done in France before the Revolution, they may both be given separately to the same Ambassador, who, in that event, presents the open letter at his public reception, and the sealed letter at his first private audience of the Sovereign. Formerly there was another class of powers, called actus ad omnes populos, which authorised an Ambassador to treat with all the States with which he might come in contact. The English Minister at the Hague received a power of this do-everything-with-everybody kind in 1713, in order to enable him to negotiate with the representatives of all the Governments interested in the Congress of Utrecht. All powers, of whatever category they be, cease to be valid on the death either of the sovereign who sent them or of the sovereign who received them; and, strictly, diplomatic communications ought, in one or other of these events, to be suspended until new powers arrive; but, in practice, as such a suspension would be inconvenient, the old credentials are fictively supposed to remain in force. Nuncios and Legates are, however, exempted from the necessity of a renewal of their credentials on the accession of a new Pope; the reason being that, according to the theory of the Chancellerie of Rome, the Pope does not die. It is in virtue of the same principle of the continuous and impersonal authority of the Holy See, that no mourning is ever worn by European Courts for a deceased Pontiff. In addition to the regular letters of credence, a Monarch frequently gives lettres d'adresse, which are private letters of recommendation, to his ambassadors. And there is one more form connected with this element of the subject answers to letters of recall are called lettres de recréance. - Correspondence between sovereigns is a matter which is approached with much solemnity, and spoken of with deep reverence by the authors. This disposition is very comprehensible on the part of professors of etiquette, but it is natural that we ordinary people should regard this element of the subject as a simple form, like all the rest. Not as one form, however, but as three; for royal letters are divided rigorously into three categories Lettres de Conseil, Lettres de Cabinet, and Lettres autographes-the destination and the composition of each of which classes of communication are accurately defined. Letters of the first category are employed in cases where strict ceremonial is observed: they commence by a repetition of the titles of the sovereign who writes, and almost always finish by the phrase, "Sur ce Nous prions Dieu qu'il Vous ait, très-haut, très-puissant, et très - excellent Prince, notre très aimé bon frère (ami, cousin, allié) en sa sainte et digne garde." It should be noticed that a President of republic is not called by these tender titles, but that he is simply "grand et bon ami." In letters of this class all personal pronouns referring to the sender or the receiver are written in the plural, with their initials in capitals; they are dated at the bottom, on the left side; they are generally countersigned by the 66 Hard as Foreign Minister; they are drafted on the largest possible paper, enclosed in the largest possible envelope, and sealed with the largest possible seal. A letter of the second class is more personal: it begins by Sire," if the sovereign written to be superior to the sovereign who writes; or by "Monsieur mon Frère" in other cases. The writer speaks of himself in the singular; the letter is not countersigned; the paper, envelope, and seal, though still enormous, are considerably smaller than in the former case. Finally, in autograph letters, the sovereign becomes almost human ; he writes them all himself, manu propria; they have no official character, but they possess the most extraordinary elasticity of meaning, for we are told that they are considered to be a sign of deference to a superior, of friendship to an equal, and of particular affection and regard to an inferior. the times now are for kings, they have, at all events, an advantage over their subjects in this one affair of letter-writing; none of us could anyhow express all this variety of conflicting sentiments by a simple note. The private letters of the Pope, written by his own hand, have a special name; they are called motus proprii. He always begins his letters to Catholic sovereigns, even when he writes in French, by putting his own name in Latin, and then comes the invariable phrase, "Carissime in Christo fili noster! Salutem et apostolicam benedictionem!" The usual ending of such letters is, "Nous vous donnons, de tout notre cœur, notre bénédiction paternelle." Sovereigns writing to the Pope finish, ordinarily, by the phrase, "Sur ce je prie Dieu, très Saint Père, qu'il vous conserve longues années aux Gouvernement de notre mère la Sainte Eglise.-Votre dévoué fils." When royal letters are addressed to equals or inferiors, the titles of the writer are indicated in the heading, and precede those of the recipient; but if an inferior prince communicates with a sovereign, he states his own titles at the bottom of the letter, reserving the top for the catalogue of honours belong ing to the monarch to whom he writes. If a private person addresses royalty, he must use the largest possible paper which his country can supply; the writing must be of a hugeness proportioned to the paper; and it is absolutely essential that he should not inscribe more than four lines on the first page to a king or queen, or six lines to a prince or princess; it would be grossly contrary to etiquette to exceed these limits. The letter must conclude by the following formula, written in detached lines: "JesuisSire de Votre Majesté- le très humble, très obéissant, et très respectueux serviteur (et fidèle sujet);" or, to a Prince, "Je suis, avec un profond respect - Monseigneur de Votre Altesse Royale (Impériale, Sérénissime)-le très humble et très obéissant serviteur." It is probable that most people will feel somewhat glad, on reading these particulars, that they are not in frequent correspondence with Continental sovereigns. In France there is, or rather used to be, a special habit of using the third person, saying le Roi instead of Votre Majesté. Thus, for instance, "Je prends la liberté de faire observer au Roi." Diplomatic correspondence, properly so called-that is to say, the business correspondence exchanged between Ministers and Ambassadors -is precisely like any other sort of letter-writing. Even De Martens, the universal illuminator of the subject, the special torch-bearer in diplomatic fogs, cannot manage to point out a substantial difference between this sort of epistolary cor VOL. CXV.-NO. DCXCIX. respondence and any other. It is, however, terribly humiliating to acknowledge, as we are forced to do, on the faith of two centuries of various authors, that the representatives of nations, whose letters are called despatches, and are carried by special couriers, are obliged to write in the same language as common people who are not ambassadors; and that they possess no distinguishing style which belongs to themselves alone, and separates them from the mob which uses postage-stamps. Even in the beginnings and the endings of their missives-those tests of Continental courtesy-Ministers and Envoys do not get much beyond the forms of daily life. If, in writing to each other, they address a Minister who is a mere Count, or less, they say Excellence, or Monsieur le Ministre, as the case may be; but if he has a title above that of Count, it is always given to him in preference to Minister. Since Prince von Bismark has risen to his present rank, all letters to him in French begin with "Prince;" official communications addressed to the Duc de Broglie or the Duc Decazes commence in the same manner, by Monsieur le Duc. It would be contrary to usage to call a prince or duke by the inferior denomination of Monsieur le Ministre. These letters finish, as they begin, by formalities of which diplomacy has no monopoly, and in what is, for the Continent, a very everyday sort of fashion. Their terminations, which are sometimes longer than the letter itself, oscillate between two extremes, from the simple expression of distinguished sentiments, up to "I beg your Excellency to be pleased to accept, with regard, the assurances of the feelings of most high and respectful consideration with which I have the honour to be, Monsieur le Duc, of your E Excellency, the very humble and very obedient servant." The Germans, it is true, do get into learned shades and delicate distinctions in their official correspondence; but they do just the same all day long between themselves. Wohlgeboren, Hochgeboren, Hochwohlgeboren, and Edelgeboren, are no special property of diplomacy, they belong to the entire fatherland. It is, partly, to regulate the wording of addresses and of the ends of letters that the Protocol department is established in so many ministries of foreign affairs. All correspondence of a specially official nature is prepared in that department, where alone the science of perorations and the pure traditions of ceremonious superscriptions are supposed to be preserved and handed on from generation to generation. We English people, who content ourselves with "Sincerely yours," and who look upon all expansive signatures as ridiculous exaggerations, are unable to comprehend the gravity which questions of this kind assume in certain Continental minds. We fail to seize the finely graduated merits of all the varied shapes of epilogues to letters which our neighbours use. They, however, all over Europe, have been brought up to appreciate and to feel the symmetrical differences of their meanings; and they detect fine multiplicities of expression in phrases which, to our unhabituated minds, represent nothing but a comical accumulation of idle words. Voltaire affected to be of our way of thinking he attacked the forms of writing of his time when he said, --"César et Pompey s'appelaient César et Pompey; mais ces gens là ne savaient pas vivre. Ils finissaient leurs lettres par vale, adieu; nous étions, nous autres, il y a soixante ans, 'affectionnés serviteurs;' nous sommes devenus 'très humbles et très obéissants;' et, actuellement, nous avons l'honneur de l'être.' Je plains notre postérité; elle ne pourra que difficilement ajouter à ces belles paroles." And yet the examples which have just been quoted, prove that we have added a good deal to what Voltaire thought was already so excessive. Madame de Genlis saw the subject in another light she defended the use of deferential and courteous expletives, especially towards women. The picture which she gives of Voltaire's time differs a good deal from his. She says: "Les hommes donnaient le Monseigneur aux Maréchaux de France, et finissaient, je suis, avec respect.' Les femmes disaient aussi Monseigneur, mais gardaient le respect pour les vieux parents et pour les princes. Avec des égaux on signait, j'ai l'honneur d'être votre;' avec les inférieurs, ‘je suis,. avec une parfaite considération;' et avec tout ce qu'il y a de plus inférieur, je suis très parfaitement votre.' Tous les hommes, même les princes du sang, devaient placer le mot 'respect' dans les lettres écrites aux femmes. Du temps de Louis XIII. on disait à la fin des lettres qu'on était avec passion.'" In all this there is but one phrase which is really worthy of our memory; that one, however, is a lesson in itself;-"all men placed the word 'respect' in the letters they wrote to women." It would be a good thing for ourselves to do the same. Throughout Europe this custom still lives on; in England only we take no heed of it. Even the Frenchman of to-day offers his "respectful homage" to every lady to whom he writes a note. It is but an empty phrase; but it marks out, by its two words alone, the line of separation between those who have a right to claim respect and those who are bound to offer it. Could we not adopt it? |