The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

Sortiga Corrtsponbente.

THE trial of Count de Montelemlbe'llurts'beTfohrtuesthdaeY;ri.
bunal of Correctional Police took place yesterday,
and and ended in his condemnation to six months' imp's.
sonment and 3,1/Mfr. fine, and in that of the
preusbpolisnh-
sible editor of the Correspondant, in which
to one month's
beyondlmn the text
siva article appeared,
and I,ooofr. tine. None of the news
neither was
any account whatsoever of the trialnewspapers
s--soornent
of the judgment, it being contrary to law in this
country to report press prosecutions ;
anybody in court allowed to take notes. Notwith-
standing this, the London daily newspapers will, I
understand, publish a detailed account of the pro.
(feedings ; but as these accounts will be merely written
from memory, and by men who have a strong bias in
favour of Count de Montalembert, they mast be read
with considerable distrust. The trial, certainly, has
excited considerable interest in this
contemporaries
city;
altogether untrue, as some of your
have alleged, that it has produced anything like coin.
motion. So far from this being the case, I verily
believe if the Parisian population were polled, they
would, by an overwhelming majority, express appro•
bation of the prosecution—first, because Count de
Montalembert is believed to be a Jesuit, and the
Jesuits are hated here ; next, because his article has
wounded the national vanity of the people, by the
exaggerated praise it gives to England, and it;
exaggerated disparagement of France. M. Berryer
defended the Count, and he not only displayed all
his usual eloquence, but, as was to be expected from
one who, in addition to being an eminent advocate,
is leader of the Legitimist party, said some very
bitter things of the Imperial Government. Nor was
M. Dufame, who defended the responsible editor, lei.;
bitter : and that is not to be wondered at, for he was
a Minister under the Republic, and has cast in his
political lot with the small knot of men who remain
faithful to that, for France, absurd and impracticable
system of government. But all the bitterness aid all
the eloquence of the two learned gentlemen will, so
far as the public are concerned, go for little, for nothing
more will be known of their speeches than the vava
and contradictory statements of the very few people
who were present. The sentence of six months' im-
prisonment may appear severe ; but confinement for
press offences in Paris, when the offenders ace gen•
tlensen, is more nominal than real—the said offenders
being allowed to undergo the imprisonment wherever
most convenient, being allowed to go out of gaol
whenever business calls, on condition of returning at
night, and being, moreover, able on the pretext of
illness, or even of simple indisposition, to obtain
removal to a nazism' de sante, where they enjoy every
liberty, except, perhaps, that of sleeping away from
the establishment. Of course, when the personal
restraint is so slight, it follows that the offenders
when actually in gaol have everything in the shtherape
of food and comforts they choose to procure, tog
e
with free access to books, writing materials, and
newspapers, and the privilege of receiving as many
visitors as they please. In fact, I have heard jour-
nalists say that imprisonment for press offences is
rather a pleasant break in the ordinary monotony of
existence, than a thing to be complained of.
The state of the relations between France and
Austria has for a long time been so notoriously un-
friendly as to cause uneasiness; and this uneasiness
has been aggravated during the last few days by the
receipt of news that events in Italy are evidently tend•
ing towards another outbreak, and by the belief that an
outbreak in that country cannot fail to lead to
rupture between Austria and France—perhaps even
bring them into collision. It has been further in-
creased by the appearance of some rather violent
articles against Austria iu the governmental news-
papers, and especially by one in the Presse, the organ
t
of Prince Napoleon, declaring in express terms the
" war with Austria " is desirable. So great, indeed,
has been the sensation occasioned, that a rather
_
heavy fall has taken place on the Bourse. I think,
however, from what I hear said in well-informed
quarters, that the public fears are, if not ahogether
_
unfounded, grossly exaggerated. The situation
the Papal States, of Naples, and of the Austrian
e 4
i3oll
t ftzt
provinces of Lombardo-Venetia, certainlye
satisfactory ; but tho populations of those