The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-13 00:00:00

LADY LECTURERS IN FRANCE.

We read in the Temps of today:—" We have
the good fortune to be able to cite • new instaime of the
precious tutelage in which bureaucracy seeks to keep the
French mind. Madlle. Royer, the young lady who lately
addressed to us such a remarkable letter, and to whom the
Renaissance would have opened the chairs of all the uni-
versities—Madlle. Royer had intended to deliver at the
circle of the learned societies at Midaquaia Quay four or
five lectures upon the eighteenth century. The circle of
the learned societies is • free institution, • private

establishment. Doubtless it is on that account
that Mad He. Royer was warned that she must
procure an authorisation from the prefecture of
police. She solicited this at the beginning of November,
and awaited the result. On the 24th of November she
was sent for to the prefecture of police, and informed that
her request bad been forwarded to the Minister of Public
fostruction. She again waited. On the Ist of December
she was questioned by en inspector of the Academy. From
the ministerial bureau her request passed to the table of
the Imperial Council of Public Instruction. The Imperial
Council deliberated ; and cc January 8, that is, more than
two months after her first step in the matter, Madlle.
Royer was informed that she was not authorised to carry
out her project. We do not know whether in China her
request would have had to go through such a labyrinth ;
but, frankly speaking, we think she would have got
through it with better success. Whither do they wish all
these regulations to lead us? Where are we going? Have
we returned to infancy that they should put us thus into
leeding-strings ?"

The Augsburg Gazette states that the ex-Queen
of Naples has at last decided to return to the world and
rejoin her hueland, Francis the Second ; but, in accordance
with the wish of her relatives, she will not par at once
from the cloister to the troubled life of a court, and will
consequently stay for some weeks with her family at
Munich.

The inhabitants of the Quai de la Tournelle have
paid dearly for the excitement which the funeral of the
Archbishop of Paris afforded them. There was not a whole
window pane to be found in any of their dwellings on Sun-
day, u all had been shattered by the report of the twelve
salvos of artillery which announced that Mgr. Morlot was
consigned to his last resting•place. The damage which was
thus cm:mimed is enormous, in consequence of the large
number of shops in the neighbourhood of Notre Dame
which have plate-glass windows. The crash of glue at
the Hotel Dien was last Thursday, it is said, frightfuL

A new journal has been started in Copenhagen,
having the peculiar feature of an English summary and an
English leading article. The journal itself is daily, but the
English columns will only make their appearance once •
week.

A letter from Wesel (a Prussian fortress of the
Rhenish provinces) to the Rhine Oazdte says :—" A
sentinel was lately surprised asleep at his post by a
lieutenant of our garrison. The latter in a moment of
impatience awoke the sleeper by several violent slaps on
the free, and then reported the transgression. The sentinel
was condemned to 110010 disciplin►ry punishment, but the
ill-treatment to which he had been subjected having trans-
pired, the officer was in his turn brought before the
military tribunal, and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment
in a fortress for having struck a soldier on guard."

From official returns, it appears that there are
published in Austria 122 political journals, of which 73 are
is German ; 6 Scla►ouiau ; 4 Polish ; 2 Serrian ; 13 Italian ;
16 Hungarian ; 3 Rottman ; 2 Greek ; 1 Sloracdc, and 2
Hebrew. The non-political are 312 in number.

A letter from Bagdad, in the Moniteur, says :
a The excavations carried on among the ruins of Babylon,
under the direction of the French consul at Beaded, have
redrafted in some interesting discoveries. In the Minuend
Mourid, which wan visited by Mr. lanyard i 91840. were
found four bas-reliefs of colossal dimensions, each sculp-
tured on a large slab of stone, and representing allegorical
figures. The greater p►rt of these ban-reliefs bear long in-
scriptions in cuneiform characters, mil are remarkable for
their date of preservation. A certain number of other
sculptures of smaller dimensions, representing scenes of
Assyrian life or warlike episodes, have also been discovered.
Those artistic treasures are on their way to France."

The British steamer Scotland, the pioneer of a
British line of steamers which is to run monthly between
Chins, Japan, and California, arrived at San Franciaoo in
the middle of last month. She brought 700 tons of freight
from China, and 300 tone from Japan, chiefly teas. She
touched at Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Kanagaw►. The
charge for freight is two guineas a ton, and for pueengers
501. each.

PRESIDENT DAVIS'S RETALIATORY PROCLAMATION.
—Mr. Davis ought also to remember that, though England
and France have conceded to the Southern States the posi-
tion of belligerents, it behoves them to exercise their belli-
gerent rights with the utmost forbearance and moderation.
We have not scrupled to express our sympathy with the
South in their gallant struggle for national independence,
and so stroog has been that sympathy that it has over-
powered the repulsion inspired by the institution of slavery.
But the South should remember that they were the first to
draw the sword in this quarrel, that they rose against
an established government in the exercise of its legal Guoa
tions, that they obtained by the agency of traitors in that
government a considerable supply of arms and money, and
that that union which they seek to dissolve is, as events
have proved, the dearest wish of every American heart.
These things are provocations of no ordinary magnitude.
and in some degree extenuate, though they can in no de-
gree justify, the outrages which have followed the solitary
Northeru success, the capture of New Orleans. Better to
bear a little longer even such iniquities as those of which
they complain then to aggravate the horrors of a contest
already sufficiently dreadful by licensing a system of murder
from which neither party can reap any possible advantage, sod
which can only teed to envelope the American name in ever-
lasting ignominy. No doubt it may be suggested as an
excuse fur the South that they have the fate of St. Domingo
before their eyes, and have the most dreadful apprehen-
sions of the lot which may overtake their homes, their
wives, and their children in cave of a oegro insurrection.
But this iv one of the chances of war which they must have
well weighed and considered before they raised the flag of
insurrection. Their own valour and success have created
the danger by driving the North to despair, and they
ought to meet it with the calmness of men resolved
sod prepared, not with the fury of surprise and panic.
If the North, which we will not yet believe, should
carry out ita dreadful threat, the evil will not be
averted by killing the officers who may be detached on a
service which is not in itself contrary to the usages of war.
They will not be deterred from undertaking it, and, should
they be slain, their death will be bloodily avenged.
lastly, Mr. Davis ought to consider whether it is worth
his while, in order to gratify the justly-incensed feelings of
the South, to cut off from himself that European sym-
pathy which he now possesses, and to appear before the
civilised world as the first to convert an honourable contest
Into a war of extermination. We earnestly hope to find
that this plan of retaliation has remained ursexecutel, and
that the horror of mrutaacres in cold blood may not be
added to the miseries of a contest between men of the game
language, the same lineage, and the same country.—Tieses.
J EPPERSON BILIcK. —Thu unyielding and unde-
moostrative courage of Major Pelham, his composure under
the deadliest fire, have long made him conspicuous, but
were his noble qualities the subject of more glowing
eulogy than upon this occasion. General Lee exclaimed.
; I "It is inspiriting tow such glorious courage in one soyousg"
: (Major Pelham is not more than 22) ; General Jackie°
' remarked, "With a Pelham upon either dank I could van-
quish the world."—Special Correspoode at of the Tina with
the Southern Army.
On the Bth of November Inat there were twenty-
, eight steamers and 178 sailing ships lying at the port of
Shanghai in China.