The Press.
London, England, 1853-10-22 00:00:00

cl ortign anb t °lonia flttilignut.

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.
PARLY, October .20.
TIM festivities at Compiegne continue to attract
the uninvited as well as the more privileged guests.
The Emperor passes through a crowd of curious in-
truders on the way to and from► the forest, on his
shooting or hunting expeditions. Certainly the
warmth of their acclamations must be pleasing, and
perhaps even useful, in driving the game towards a
central point. Iler Majesty the E►npress assists at
these ►►port+ in a char-a-bane, with:some ladies of the
Court. Lord Cowley, Marshal Narvaez, anti Baron

de Rothschild are always of the Emperor's party.
The rest of the guests have other shooting-grounds
allotted to them. The Princess Mathible has arrived
on a visit to their Majesties. The Minister% of War,
of Foreign Affairs, and of Justice, have also arrived,
as well as Prince Napoleon, accompanied by his aide-
de-camp, Colonel I►ieutarest. Preparations arc being
made at Fontainebleau for the reception of their Im-
perial Majesties. Besides the electric telegraph or-
ganised between the palace of Compiegne and Paris,
a service of state messengers is established on the
line of railway, to convey despatches to and from the
cabinet of the Emperor day and night.
The 3/onifear of this day contains a report to the
Emperor from the Minister of the Marine and CAI
nies, M. Theodore Ducos. It is of a congratulatory
'4)1", setting forth the increase of the navy and the
diminution of expenditure. The number of sailors
at sea sin board vessels of the Imperial navy, or in
the different seap►ris, has attained the average of
:13,675 men. His Nlajesty (re •ks the minister)
had only one fleet of eight line-of-battle slaps ; now
two squadrons of fourteen men-of-war (without
counting frigates and steamers) are alloat. six new
stemat-ships, built after the model of the Nnju►b'un,
have been put on the stocks, and will be launched by
the end of next year. Nine more mixed vessels will
be ready at the seine period. No supplementary
credits for extraordinary expenses have been de-
manded or rendered necessary; all the charges have
been supported by the ordinary resources of the
budget. t►n the expenditure of Isret there is a saving
of to millions of francs. The minister proposes to
carry over :► minions to the year 1553, to Meet the
increased demands for that period, which, together
with the eets 11111 l ties he has introduced into even•
branch of the to rviee, will, he is confident, enable
him to cover all the expenses of his numerous ser-
%lees, ordinary and extraordinary, without making
any appeal to the treasury, and to refund the 5 mil-
lions remaining to the public account.
Several arrests have lately been made. Among
others, M. Charles I►elaeluse, formerly commissary-
general for the !department of the Nord, and con-
demned by the high Court 401 Versailles to t ratisport
Ile was arrested in Paris, where he had arrived
from London 011 a 11110451011104 delegate of I Ant-Ito:lin
and the central European committee. The docu-
ments found at his abode clearly show the delusion
and ignorance of public feeling in France under
which the prescripts are acting. They have cont-
promised many persons boat in Pails and in the
departments, and occasioned the arrest of people who
by no means had either cognisance of these pro-
ceedings, or had 41114111111gi'll their feolish and despe-
rate enterprises. M. tionalchaux, formerly Minister
of Finance under the Ilepublie, was arrested, and also
M. Charles de \'au•enne and M. I%larchais. They
have been since liberated, noodling having been round
in their dwellings to bear out the accusation of their
belonging to secret societies or
.being illegally pea_
sew:Ndi ot• arms.
A new method of painting has been discovered and
employed by the celebrated Horne• Vernet. It con-
sists in mixing the colours with olive till. When the
picture is painted the back of the canvas is covered
with a coating of fuller's earth, which draws the oil

SATURDAY,

through and absorbs it entirely. The painting is thus
reduced to the nature of a paste. The fuller's earth is
then removed from the canvas, and a coat of linseed oil
is applied k always at the back) ; the colours, in their
turn, imbibe this oil, and all the mellowed tones of
the old masters are obtained.
Both French and English in this country are
anxious that some public honours should be granted
to the memory of Lieutenant ltellot, of the Freudh
navy, who perished so nobly under the shadow of the
British tiag. A national testimonial to this gallant
and meritorious Frenchman will wipe out many an
old prejudice, efface many an old long-rankling grudge,
and tend to unite the sympathies and good feelings
of two great nations.

BRUSSELS, October ..tte
King Leopold, the Duke and Duchess of Brabant,
the Count of Flanders, and Princess Charlotte, left
to-day for Ostend, where they are to embark fur
London, on a visit to Queen Victoria.
M. Adolphe Barrot, a younger brother to MM.
Odilon and Ferdinand Barrot, and formerly French
Representative at Naples, has at length arrived at
Brussels, to occupy the post of a French Minister
Plenipotentiary at this Court, to which he was ap-
pointed severalmontha ago. M. Adolphe Barrot was
received the day after his arrival by King Leopold,
with whom he dined at Laeken. His presence, it is
to be hoped, will give more regularity to the diplo.
made intercourse between the two countries. A
rumour, which I believe to be unfounded, was afloat
for some days, that his arrival has already been
the occasion of a threatened ministerial crisis, in con-
sequence of the claims, of which he is said to be the
bearer, concerning the commercial negotiations now
going on without much hope of ultimate success, and
the attacks of which the French Emperor has been
the object in the two or three Republican papers yet
surviving in Belgium. In consequence of previous
remonstrances from France, a special law was passed
last year by the Belgian Chambers visiting with
severe penalties press offences against foreign Sove-
reigns. This law, however, does not appear to bate
given satisfaction, not only at Paris, but even at the
northern Courts, because it stipulates that judicial
prosecutions will only be commenced on a special
request from the diplomatic representative of the
injured Sovereign. M. Barrot, it is said, is instructed
to request a modifiention of the law, in such way
that the suit may be peremptorily ordered by the
local courts without any intervention from the foreign
diplomatic agent. The great importance of this
change is evident. It would, by leaving the whole
responsibility of the step to the local authority, give
the foreign t;overinnent a right of complaint in case
of non-prosecution, and transfoim the matter from a
judicial proceeding into a diplomatic question. The
Belgian Government pleads the impossibility of ob••
taming a more stringent law from the Chambers,
and cites the example of Sardinia, where, at this
very moment, a suit is commenced, on the express
request of the French Minister, against the Republi-
can deputy Brofferio, editor of the nice della Libertu,
for a sheeniest+ amid: against the Bonaparte family
and both Napoleons. The Belgian papers never
went so far in their attacks, and, moreover, met no
echo in the public mind—all the Republican organs
dying away successively, from want of subscribers
and sympathy. The demands presented by 111. Bar •
rot were also, amidst much personal sympathy for
the King, mentioned in the autograph letter of
which Prince Chimay was the bearer ou his return
from Lille.
There is, as I said before, another difficulty,
namely, the pretensions of the French Government
in the commercial negotiations. Events have re-
moved the great stumbling-block with which the
Belgian Cabinet had to contend, in the fOrced re•
newel with the German Customs Union of the tree y
which will expire on the ;11st December next. Aft
rropositions iiet.ert ant changes in the tariff of the
/ollverein having been rejected by the Berlin Con-
ference, anti among them the Prussian proposal f r
a reduction of the duty on iron, no other alternative
is left to Prussia but the prolongation for a year of
the existing convention with Belgium. Not so with
France. She claims all the benefits of the conven •
tion of le-15, which was accepted by Belgium under
precis% circumstances as a partial remedy to the
distress of Fl antlers, but the stipulations of which lime
not, at the present hour, the same importance so as to
counterbalance the very heavy terms she was obliged
to submit to at the time. Not content with this pre-
tension, France requires the execution of the con-
vention (not yet retitled) on mutual copyright with-
out compensation, Belgium claiming a guarantee for
the continuance of the existing privileges in regard
of coals and iron. which have at the present moment
the same importance that the linen trade hati
nl
1845. These are very serious difficulties, which it
is little probable the Ministry will, in the long run,
be able to resist—at K ast in its present composition.