The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

,1858.

T

must be followed np by others, to protect from pollution I verity believe that- if-people manifested less alarm
the Thames, which ought to be an ornament of this great than they do at the discovery of new conspiracies, we
city, and which must continue to be the 11111.111 highway of should have much fewer cl them than we have ; for
tea multifarious traffic. experience has demonstrated that plots invariably
- - - come to the knowledge of the pelice, and conse-
quently their coneoctors can hardly have any other
object in making them than to excite distrust in the
durability of the Government.
The (lover nment means to act up to the spirit of
the new law for putting down the false assumption of
aristocratic names and of titles ; but it will do so
with as much tenderness as possible. Orders have
already been issued to notaries not to give false
names or titles to their clients in legal documents,
and it is probable that similar instructi.ma will be
sent to the drawers up of electoral lists, the col-
lectors of' taxes, and all other functionaries who have
to inscribe people's names. This will give time and
opportunity to the bearers of borrowed plumes to
lay them aside ; and if they do not profit. thereby,
they must expect the law to ba put in force. I
believe that there is little doubt that the Emperor's
intention, after putting down the spurious aristocracy
with which France is overrun, n to organize, on
certain fixed bases, the real titled aristocracy, and to
add to it a creation of Imperial nobles. His Majesty's
project is of no little difficulty, owing to the prejudice
which exists amongst the " equality "-loving French
against aristocracy ; but assuredly the success of it
is desirable, inasmuch as the want of an aristocracy,
enlightened, patriotic, and highspirited like that of
England, has contributed as much as anything—
perhaps more than anything—to the convulsions
with which this land has been torn.
An absurd statement has been made this day in
political circles: it is that the English Cabinet has
resolved to abstain from taking direct vengeance for
the massacre at Jeddah, in order that France may
not have a pretext fo: sending troops across Egypt to
the Red Sea. French politicians must be " hard
up " indeed for allegations against " perfidious
Albion," when they descend to any sa very foolish.
NVhy not read Lord Malmeshury's speeches with
more attention—a duty on their part, seeing that
they are addressed as much to France as to the
House of Peers? Those speeches would have in-
formed them that regard for the sovereign tights of
the Sultan, not petty jealousy of France, will dictate
the policy of the English Cabinet.
The Conference on the Danubian Principalities is
still continuing its deliberations. Some petty dif-
ficulties, it appears, have arisen, but they have been
removed.
I subjoin the following plan of the harbour at
Cherbourg, which may, perhaps, at this moment be
interesting to your readers :

gortiga et,outsponbente.
FARIS, Thursday.
THE approaching visit of the (Wesel to Cherbourg is
the subject of general conversation. In the political
circles it excites even more interest than amongst the
public. The diplomatic body especially attaches the
highest importance to it, and it appears that the
principal diplomatists intend to go down to Cher-
bourg on the occasion, in order to obtain for their
respective Courts the earliest and fullest details. Up
to this moment no programme of it has been pub-
lished ; so that it is not yet positively known (by the
profane public, at all events', whether the interview
between the English and French Sovereigns will take
place in Cherbourg itself, or aboard ship in the
roadstead, but it is believed that the Queen will not
laud. If this belief should turn out to be well-
founded, the public will be deprived of an interesting
scene ; but still (Ito gathering of two large fleets of
England and France, and the presence of a multitude
of smaller vessels, flying flags of every hue, will form
an extraordinary and an imposing spectacle.
A French friend, who las just come up from
Cherhourt, alter going along the coast to that place
from Brest, tells me that if the Queen should land
the Cherbourg people would be delighted, even
though they have heretofore been as anti English as
any in France, owing to the rude treatment their
fathers have more than once received from ours. The
same authority tells me that the Emperor's reception
at Cherhonrg will be cordial in the extreme ; but
that at Brest, and in almost all parts of Brittany, the
chances are that it will be only lukewarm, not to sey
positively cold. It is, I hear, trom anxiety about it
in high quarters that the route to be taken by the
Emperor in his passage through Brittany has
already been more than once changed, and has not
yet been definitively fixed. Brittany, yotiare aware, is
the province iu which the landed gentry and the
clergy exercise more power, and are more highly
esteemed, than in any other in France ; and their
political sympathies are more with the representative
of the old Ringi of France than with modern
Bonapartism.
Sonic of the newspapers, I see, are hinting that
the Empress is 'either in an interesting situation, or
is ill. There is good reason for downing that her
Majesty is the former, and 1 know positively that she
is not the latter. Within the last few data the
Empress has had gay parties at St. Cloud or the
adjacent and wore charnperre residence of Villeneuve
l'Etang ; and one of the parties, and a very merry
one it was, was given ter the amusement of the little
Imperial Prince and a whole host of juveniles. So
far from being ill, the Empress, at ended by her
ladies, frequently walks in the reserved park at St.
Cloud to a late hour at night. Her Majesty, like
most fair Spaniards, is partial to moonlight pro-
menades, and at Biarritz her nips at sea are naver
made until the moon is high.
Not a little sensation was caused in courtly circles
two or three days back by the announcement in
foreign newspapers that the Russian Prince, Anatole
Demidoff, had died ; but it turned out to be a mis-
take. This personage is the husband of H.I.H. the
Princess Mathilde, the Emperor's cousin ; hut the
Princess separated from him many years ago, and
with such marked on both sides, that no
attempt at reconciliation has been made by either
since. Though bearing the title of Prince, M.
Demidoff stauila not high on the roll of Russian
nobility, even if he be inscribed on it at all—tha
title being a Tuscan one—and, therefore, the
Princess made a mesalliance in espousing him. To
be sure when she did so her family was in exile, and
one of the least likely things on earth was to see it
raised to the Imperial "rhrone of France. It is con-
sidered a strong proof of the good sense, modesty,
and innate sense of justice of the Emperor, that lie
has net made use of his immense power, and of his
influence with the Pape, to release the Princess
his cousin from ties that are hateful to her, and
which he and all hia family regard with no favour-
able eve.
The newspapers of the large town of St. Etienne,
which have arrived this morning, bring a rather
startling piece of news—the discovery in that town
of a conspiracy for making hand grenades, similar to
those of Orsini, the seizure of three such grenades,
and the arrest of twenty conspirators. Assuredly
sun a discovery is of grave importance; but the
worst of such things is that the public always
exaggerates them—always considers them as a new
proof that France, in spite of her present calm, is a
seething volcano, constantly menacing an eruption.

DOCK NAPOLEON 111.

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irreign anb Colonial 3nteligcnrt.

FRANCE.

The following remarks on the English press ap-
pear in the Moniteur de l'Armite :
We have nut hitherto noticed the inconceivable attitude
assumed with regard to France by a few of the English
journals, and of which the Times is the most important
and the most unreasonable. That journal, which comprises
among its writers men equally distinguished for their
honourable character and their talents, too often blends
with the excellent articles they write the bitterest diatribes
against a country whose alliance it had appreciated only
the day before at its full value. The completion, so long
expected, of the works at Cherbourg, undertaken by
order of Louis XIV., and to which fresh impulse was
given by Napoleon I. more than half a century ago,
has been the signal for fresh attacks, and on this
occasion the most unseemly irony gives its ignoble Rid
t) the violence of party spirit. The time is long past,
thank God! when an English Minister could at his
pleasure deprive France of its only military port in the
North Sea, and in our time no English statesman would
think of preventing us from having a maritime establish-

meet on 41611 waist et the Channel worthy of being shown
to our breve neighbours of Portsmouth or Plymouth.
Each nation possesses, without any dispute or recripocal
limitation, a naval establishment suited to its necessities
and its power. Who can find fault becium this naval force
has a secure place of refuge on its sea frontier? The unre-
fleeting ,writers who sound the alarm-bell in England against
an imaginary danger, by which that great nation will not
suffer itself to be alarmed, would obtain very miserable
success if at their voice the British coast should bristle with
redoubts and cannon ; it in full peace a numerous army
should be assembled on a coast that nothing menaces, and
which is more loudly demanded by the exigences of the war
in China and in India; if, in fine, Great Britain should exhaust
the treasure destined for these distant operations, too really
lrgent, in order to tranquillize the unfounded uneasiness of
some ridiculous and timid dreamers. And on this load-

tuissible supposition, if France, ►failing in her well•known

•
habitual fra . nlinevi and good hi;tlt, should cherish. as site

is accused of doing, perfidious designs against a friendly
power, what grgater triumph could those unskilful writers
prepare (or her than to ruin the finances and wear out the
population of the adversary which it is by ail meanu en-
deavoured to create, without having fitted out a single ship
or assembled a single regitnenton that formidable coast and
in that gigantic port, except dame tnat are to figure in the
inauguration to which the Emperor Napoleon 111. has
graciously invited Queen Victoria? The port of Cherbourg
must necessarily be some day finished. The Emperor of
the French was itanawd by a noble and courteous feeling,
like all those by which he is animated, when he invited a
British fleet to share with a French fleet the hdnour of
entering the port the first, and in simultaneously display-
ing its flag. It is not thus that an honourable heart pro-
ceeds when it meditates hostile plans. We have reason to
believe that these sentiments of medial nuderstanding have
been loyally interpretel and accepted by her Majesty the
Queen of England, and by the statesmen who sit in her
councils. The Bound of the guns of the two allied powers
united to celebrate this solemn inauguration will be the
best reply to make to the declarations of the Times and its
adherents, whom it m ty have met among the cosmopolitan
demagogues impatient to find in an European war, which
they will be powerless to excite, some chance of success
fur their anarchical machinations.

The Paris Union informs us that" Not a day passes
without information being received of the couversion
to Catholicism of a young daughter or son of the
British aristocracy. These ifonversions are particu-
larly frequent in Belgrave•street, that immense and
magnificent quarter of London, inhabited by lords
and baronets."
The Moniteur contains a very long report of a
cortirn'ttee appointed some years ago to frame new
rules for the management of the Imperial Library
in the Rue better known by its name of
world-wide celebrity, the "Bibliotheque Royale."
The committee recommends, and a decree of the
Minister of Public Instruction adopts, a great many
changes in the personnel of the establishment, upon
the principle of centralization of power and respon-
sibility, the suppression of useless, and the augmen-
tation of the salaries of useful officers. But out of
regard to vested interests, the greater part of
these changes are only to be made gradually, unless
it shall be ultimately determined to grant full coni-
pensation to discharged servants. The great question
whether the library is still to be open to all the
world, notwithstanding the complaints that ignorant,
idle, and destitute people crowd the library, either
for the sake of shelter and warmth, or from morbid
or idle curiosity, without any bona fide desire to
study, has been resolved in this way :—There are
to be two reading-rooms ; one, to be. supplied with
about 40,000 volumes, comprising all the works
likely to be asked for by ordinary readers, will 'oe
open as heretofore to all the world. Access to the
oth-or is only to be obtained by tickets. " T do not, as
at present advised," says a correspondent, writing
from Paris, "think that this arrangement is ob-
objectionable in principle ; but of course I assume
that no vexatious difficulties will be thrown in ti e
way of granting tickets, and, above all, that the re-
served room will not be in practice monopolized by
functionaries and their friends. The mere fact of a
man taking the trouble to apply for a ticket and to
give a reference ought to go a long way to show
that he has a serious literary object in desiring to be
admitted."
A nun named Moreau, hut whose name " in re-
ligion " was Sister Alexandra, of the convent of St.
Joseph, at St. Julien de Civry (Saone et•Loirel,
who died in November, 1855, constituted by her
will the Abbe Beurier her residuary legatee, and,
as her property was very considerable, it was calcu-
lated that, after deducting various other legacies
which she had made, he would come into possession
of more than 300,000 francs. Her family some
months ago brought an action before the Civil
Tribunal of Charolles to have the will set aside, on
the ground that it was invalid, because it was made
for the berefit of the " spiritual director " of the
testatrix, because it had been obtained by undue
influence, and because the legacy was not made to
the abbe personally, but on the understanding
that he would transfer it to the convent of St.
Joseph. The tribunal, after hearing all the parties,
came to the conclusion that there was nothing to
prove the first two allegations, but that the third
• was well founded, inasmuch as in a previous will she

had only left him 10,000 fr., and he had done nothing
to merit from her, personally, a larger legacy. It
therefore declared the will null and void. A few days
ago the abbe appealed against this decision to the
Imperial Court of Dijon, and affirmed, in support of
it (and offered to do so on oath), that the legacy
was really made to him personally, not in trust for
the convent; but the court did not credit him, and
as the law does not allow legacies to be made to a
person to be transferred to a religious c3mmunity, it
confirmed the previJus judgment.