The Express.
London, England, 1852-06-04 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, TIRMIDAT EVIININO.
I understand that within the last few days the
President has held a council of his moat confidential
advisers, I'ersigny, do Maupas, St. Arnaud, and
one or two more, to deliberate on the course to be
taken in reference to eventual decision of the Couneil
of State iu the matter of the Orleans property. If I
am rightly informed, the following decision was
agreed to :—lf the judgment of the Council of State
should be contrary to thy pretensions of the govern-
ment, the affair will be allowed to take its course be.
fore the ordinary tribunals. If the decision of these
tribunals should be in favour of the Orleans family,
such • result will be equivalent to the judicial
reversal of the decrees of Jan. 22. The government
will in that case take measures still more ener-
getic. A:I the facts relative to fusion will be
collected, as well as the refusals of oath and resig-
nations, motived or not ; all the intrigues of the
Orleans family will be strung together. From these
materials au elaborate pollee report will be composed,
and this report, printed in the Monitemr, will be fol-
lowed by a decree, ordering the general and absolute
confiscation of all the property of the house of
Orleans in France, instead of the partial confiscation
already decreed on January 22. The new decree
would be executed immediately.
*the affair of the will of the Prince de Conde is
going on more actively than ever. M. do Bernie
has been charged by the Elysee to prepare a pam-
phlet on this question. The pamphleteer had, I un-
derstand, a d:ij or two ago, an interview with the
members of the De Hoban family, whose interests
were invaded by the will constituting the Duke
d'Annule heir of the last prince of the house of
Conde. The memoir of M. de Bernie appears to be •
virulent libel, which does not spare even the character
of the ex-Queen Marie-Amehe. Immediately after
the publication of the memoir the De Bohan family
will be induced to bring forward their claims before
the competent tribunal.
M. lterryer, it seems, past two day. with the Duke
de Bordeaux at Frohsdorf. The Duke do Levis,
head-counsellor of the Bourbon prince, was present
at their interviews, and held long conferences with
the eloquent legitimist- After leaving Frohsdorf M.
Berryer proceeded to Vienna, where ho was received
by the I.:mperor, and by Count Buol, Austrian
Minister of Foreign Affairs. M. Bcrryer spent only
two days in the Austrian capital, and then paid a
second visit to Frobstlorf. He would thence pro-
ceed to join at Baden the King of Wurtemberg, with
whom he has to communicate as executor of the late
Prince Paul of Wuremberg. The Duke of Levis is
expected at Paris. he is replaced for the present at
Fruhsdorf by M. Ferdinand de Laferronays, who
wrote the letter which has made so much noise.

Said l'acha, instead of going from Marseilles to
the waters at Mont-Dore, set out at once for Paris,
where he has now arrived. It is, therefore, inferred
that the state of his health was the pretext, and not
the true reason for his visit to France. Additional
weight is now given to the reports circulating in
Cairo that the hereditary Prince of Egypt had left
for the purpose of conferring with Louis Napoleon
upon political matters. His movements here will be
watched with much curiosity.
The President will be accompanied in his visit to
the south by General de St. Arnaud.
The Count de Sine, a member of the municipal
council of Coureellea, has written to the prefect of
the Manches to resign his seat, by way, as he ex-
pressly says, of "withdrawing" the oath which he
about a month ogo, in ignorance of the Count de
Chambord's wishes.

It has been incorrectly announced that M. Lupin,
sera., had taken the oath as councillor-general of the
Nierre. M. Dupla holds no such office in that de-
partment.
M. llowyn de Tranchere, ex-representative of the
Gironde, and a follower of M. Thiers in the National
Assembly, has refused the oath as councillor-general
of that department.
The Muniteur contains a decree of the Prince Pre-
sident of the Republic, officially promulgating the
convention between France and Bavaria, concluded
on the 4th February, 1848, for the formation and
working of a railway from Strasburg to Spire.
The Prefect of the Basses Alpes has stretched the',
power of closing catZs, so far as to shut up one at
Simiane, upon no other ground than the one stated
in his decree, that a single individual made use of a
seditious expression in the house.
Several of the copies of the Comlitutionnel, con-
taining M. de Cassagnac's Belgian article, which
were distributed through Belgium, were addressed
in the Flemish language. This is a clear
indication that M. de -Carmagnac must have
had at his elbow, when composing his jesuiti-
cal libel on the liberal government of Leopold,'
a Belgian papist, capable at least of indicating the
leading people of the country, if but indifferently
versed in its affair,.
The Corps Legislative jogs on to the close of its
session with careless case, at the rate of two sit-
tings a week, and no debate. The report on
the budget with not be presented until the
20th, so that the legislature will have just a week
to discuss this immense law. This is putting down
the parliamentary system with a vengeance.
The principle of the new tariff of custom duties
now preparing by the government will be simpli-
cation rather than abolition of protection. The duties
will be abolished, as in the tartlf of Sir Robert Peel,
upon a vast number of miscellaneous articles, which
are not imported in sufficient quantity to compensate
the trouble of levying a duty upon.
An inquiry is set on foot throughout France with
regard to notaries. AU persons of this profession
are required to All up an official paper, describing
their age, fortune, state, with other particular.. The
notaries are in a terrible stew, lest their privileges
should be abolished.

Its officially reported that two new bells us
about to be sent to the Council of &Mob ewe for re-
gulating the attributions of the oonnonsioneral and
councils of arrondissements, and the other Niglio to
• _

the butchers trade. It will be quite impoesibi;
during the remaining three weeks of the evasion,
for the Corp Legislative, whose average sit-
tings hitherto have scarcely exceeded two a week, to
pass a tenth part of the not very numerous measures
already presented.
The bill now before the Corp' Legislatif for pro-
longing the tobacco mongoly until 'unary let,
1883, isyublished in the Meadow., together with the
reasons in favour of the measure (the &woo dos mo-
tifs.) These reasons are signed by 3131. Boinvil-
hers, Viutry, and °retain, the counsellors of state
aplisointed by the President to support the bill in the
Legislatif and the Senate. It is very com-
y said that no good tobacco or snuff is
to be got in France, and if the reason why be
asked, tho general answer is, "on account of the state
monopoly. This opinion receives confirmation from
the eagerness shown by Frenchmen to commission
their friends to smuggle London cigars and snuff into
NAL It is, however, I believe, undoubted that the
quality of French tobacco has considerably improved
within the last few years; and, if the official reasons
now given are to be credited, the improvement is
owing to the monopoly. It is asserted that, since
the monopoly was founded, or Whet revived, by the
emperor in 1810, it has been strengthened by every
discussion, and has been daily more productive. The
progressive increase of the profit to the state is
proved by figures. In 1837, when a parliamentary
committee reported in favour of the continuance of
the monopoly, the net receipts of the treasury
from it amounted to fifty-seven millions of francs.
The benefit to the treasury has steadily
increased up to 1830, when it reached
88,916,000. The estimated amount for 1831,
when the returns shall have been completed, is
92,509,000 fr. It is admitted that these results are
attributable In great measure to the fact that the
use of tobacco becomes every day more general, but
credit is claimed for improved manufacturing pro-
cesses, and general good management by the state,
to which a pert afthe increase must be attributed.
Before 1833 the quality of cigars and tobacco was
inferior, owing to prohibition against the nao of
more than a very limited proportion of foreign to-
Immo. Till that period the administration was com-
pelled to use at least 78 per cent. of French tobacco,
sad only 21 per cent of American, and I per cent.
of European. By an alteration then mode in the
law, they were permitted to use 38 per cent. of
American, and 10 per cent, of European to 52 per
cent. of French tobacco. The price of 86fr. 79e, per
kilogramme formerly paid to French planters
has been reduced to 73fr. 28c., and yet
neither this reduction is price nor the increased
imports of foreign tobacco has materially reduced the

consumption of Preach predate. The yearly avenge
before the change was 11,880,000 kilos., and since it
has been 10,338,000 kilos. One great recomownda-
lion of the tobacco monopoly as • ammo of public
ireveaue is that it seems to have been scarcely aSected
by revolutions or political commotion. The con-
cluding argument for prolonging the exclusive pri-
vilege of the state to manufacture and sell tobacco ii
that it produces • sixteenth part of the public re-
venue, and that by • tax easily collected, and
acquiesced in
.by the public, who hurl) become
accustomed to it.

The Council of State is preparing a constitution
for Algeria, and a constitution fur the French colo-
nies generally.
The Monitenr recent) y announced the promotion
of M. I'roudhon, judge of the Civil Tribunal
of Besancon, to be a judge of the Court of
Appeal of that city. " This gentleman," says
the Independence of Brussels, k' is the father
of the celebrated socialist writer. In 1843,
the latter was corrector of the press in a
printing-office, and his acquirements in theology
attracted the attention of the archbishop of the city.
The prelate noticed favourably his articles in the
Enryclopedie Cathulique. It was at Besancon that he
wrote his famous treatise on Propric444, and his book
on the Obscrcolion du Dirnanclse.
At the Bourse the Four-and-a. Half per Cents. rose
36c., closing at 100.23; the Threes fell 23c., and
closed at 71.66. The Havre railway rose 30; St.
Germain, 18.75; Dieppe, 6; Central and Lyons,
2.30 each ; Strasbourg and Tours and Nantes, 1.25
each; Mantillas fell 7.30; Rouen, 2.30.

SWITZERLAND.
The LAW. has the following We have pub-
lished two paragraphs from Berlin journals of the
28th and 29th ult., on the subject of a convention
relative to Switserland, said to have been signed at
the Foreign-office. Wu are now in possession of
some new facts, which enable us to rectify the state-
ments referred to. We learn that the ministers of
the five great powers did meet at the Foreign-office
on or about the lith of May, to consider a note of
the King of Prussia respecting Neufchatel, but it is,
certain that nothing final was decided in that con-
ference, and that all further decision was adjourned,
until a more opportune occasion. There is of course
therefore no foundation for what has been written
about modifying the constitutions of certain of the
cantons or the employment of coercive measures."

GERMANY.
PRUSSIA.

The Elkrfeld Gazette and other Prussian news-1
papers, state that the exchange of notes between the
cabinets of Berlin and Vienna on the subject of Zell-
verein affairs has ceased, and direct negotiations are
to be considered as broken off. The Zollverein con-
gress at Berlin meets again on the 7th inst.: a deci-
sive declaration of Prussian intentions is then
expected.
BERLIN, Jima 1.
The Empress of Russia left Potsdam tho day before
yesterday. The King accompanied her to Naum-
rg, where he took leave of her. She pursued her
journey to the baths, accompanied by the princes of
Prussia, stopping at Weimar only for two days.
The Oldenburg Chamber is confidently stated to
have ratified the treaty. of the 7th September,
making only such provisos as will in no way
impede the execution of the treaty. Some people hope
that, this point being settled, the Prussian govern-
ment will now take a more decisive course as regards
the Darmstadt coalition, and no longer buffer the
sittings of the Zollverein's conference to be occupied,
by empty formalities intended rather to avoid than
to produce a decision of the pending questions.
There has, however, es yet been nothing done to
warrant such a hope. The sittings of last Saturday
was as futile as all previous ones.