The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-24 00:00:00

RANK AND WEALTH.

The great sensation of this week is the marriage of
Madlle. Mires. This has been an event talked of for
at least five years, ever since Mires himself gained his
enormous fortune. First the Due de la Tremouille was
supposed to be the happy individual, and it was thought
even possible to compliment his mother on her son's
marriage ; but that combination passed away, and
was numbered with the past. Some other bridegrooms
were mentioned, but none appeared more positive
than M. de la Tremouille, and the golden
fleece of the Hotel de Mires still awaited its Jason.
At length Jason came in the shape of M. de Polignac,
and tremendous is the talk thereat. The whole
affair is conducted in a vastly noisy, notorious manner,
and there is no mystery affected. M. Mires, when
spoken to the other day about his daughter's change of
position, replied, "Yes ! I had refused her to several
suitors, but really times are so very extraordinary just
now, and I-feel myself so very insecure of what I can
call my own, that it is wiser to establish her !"
So that here is a Polignac accepting Madlle. Mires,
because Mires (pore) does not feel himself "safe,"
financially speaking. As you may imagine, this
circumstance, and the way in which the bride's father
treats the whole business, drives the Faubourg St. Ger-
main to distraction, and one absolutely would fancy
this was the first time an ancient name sold itself shame-
lessly for money. However, in this case the terrible
complication is that Mdlle. Mires is (or was) a Jewess ;
and to be just to the so-called gentlemen of this nation,
I believe it to be the very first time one of them has
entered into an alliance of the kind. They have, from
the days of La Regence downwards, intermarried with
even the most unequivocal bargain-drivers and traders,
thus making themselves, according to the Prince
de Ligne, " a race of shopkeepers ; " but they
have never mixed Christian with Israelitish blood.
The consequence is, that on all sides what is
called "society" is up in arms, or rather, I should
perhaps say, that all those families are up in arms that
are in any degree connected with the Polignacs. The
eldest brother of the bridegroom married a Crillon,
the sister married a La Rochefoucauld, and is now
dead ; but La Rochefoucaulds and Crillons declare
that no power on earth shall induce them to open
their doors to this degenerate son of the Polignacs,
and so a great fuss is made in the Paris fashion-
able world, that a great feud has broken out be-
tween great families. Meanwhile, however, the hero
of the history is worth a few words of descrip-
tion :—Alphonse Armand de Polignac was the young
man who, in 1848, led a band of insurgents to the
attack of the Tuileries, and made them dance in Louis
Philippe's reception-rooms to the sound of the polkas
he played them on the piano of the princesses. He
had become very popular with the ruffians under his
orders, and they were for ever bearing him in triumph.
All at once (this was on the 23rd of February), he
said to them :—" This is all mighty fine, my good
friends ; but if you knew my name you would pro-
bably pitch me into the Seine. I am a son of Prince
Polignac !" The crowd of dirty, powder-begrimed,
hard-handed fellows, looked stupid, and cried, "We
never heard of him !" Young Polignac smiled, and
spoke to them of July, 1830, in no measured terms, and
all they rejoined was, that anybody who had been opposed
to, and victimised by, the regime which raised the house
of Orleans to power was no enemy of theirs, and, conse-
quently, the leader of these ragged warriors became
more popular than ever. Then it was that he took them
to the Tuileries, and was among the crowd that rushed
to the sack of the palace. The whole affair soon became
a hideous species of masquerade, and M. de Polignac
was asked to play the " Marseillaise." This he
positively refused, saying at the same time that half
his family had been beheaded because of the " Marseil-
laise ;" but he offered to play other things for them, and
did so, and to a collection of the polkas then in fashion,
played for them by their anti-democratic chieftain, these
democrats of February danced like savages till they were
ready to drop. Since 1848 M. de Polignac's existence
has been a chequered one, and, like M. de Raoupet
Boulbon, who paid for it with his life, this young
man emigrated to the lands across the Atlantic,
and took part in more than one filibustering
expedition, being, amongst other adventures and
adventurers, with Walker at Nicaragua. Probably
it is in all these " out-of-door enterprises " that M.
de Polignac has so entirely got rid of family and national
prejudices, and has come to think a Jewess with £lO,OOO
a year a meet match for the finest Christian gentleman
in the world. However, his family and wide-spreading
connections have spoken a ban over him, and they
maintain that no inducement shall act on them and win
their tolerance of this, in their opinion, unpardonable
mjsalliance.—Paris correspondence of the _Literary
Gazette.

It is rumoured that the Count de Chambord is likely
to go to Rome ; but his presence in that city while so
many French troops are there will hardly be agreeable
to the Emperor Napoleon.

INKEEPERS' LIABILITY BlLL.—This bill, which has
been for several days in the Fouse of Commons paper of
businss, and which was brought in by Colonel Smyth,
proposes to enact that at innkeeper shall not be
responsible for the property of his guest where its value
exceeds £4O, unless it be deposited with him expressly
for safe custody, and he may require it to be exhibited
to him. It is also provided that any person obtaining
food or lodging from an innkeeper without the means of
paving for it, or goods of the value, may be committed
to gaol for two months.
ST,nEAD OF CO-04BATTON.---Tin rapid development
of co-ppetati'l'e and joint-stock enterprise in every de-
partment of mercantile and indukrial pursuits, more
particulary in the spinning and manufacturing of cotton,
is very apparent about Bury, Heywood, Rochdale, and
Bacup, where it is possible to enumerate such companies
by dozens. The effects of these movements have already
begun to be felt in the diminution of drunkenness, and
encouragement of thrifty habits and fyrcillought:
first sod was removed -",;;Teuninary to another of these
concerns being built) in Bamford, on Saturday last, the
whole proprietary being working men.
5.5,,11D,R OF A WOYAN AT AI.DERSUOT.—Two men
of ti,C Military Train 'are fri the custody of the civil
power at Aldershot, on the-charge of having murdered
a woman, by throwing her into the canal. It appears
that the deceased was one of those " unfortunates"
who form the principal attraction of the numerous
soldiers' public-houses in the neighbourhood of the
camp. We have not, at present, been able to learn
what amount of evidence can be produced against the
accused, but we have little doubt that the charge Nyill be
fully substantiated against them,