The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-10 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

trite erpreM

,dvertlawatands load tarIt;17;;•;i" London Inedwg
Pram% at Ye anon, 10, Bouverlootroot, by Two
be Ic ow Ur day ol pobakailow.

UOVINT GAIDIN.

Tins EVENING, Tlii 114117T1V11 DA176.1113E. Ildlle. Pam
Mr Santley. and Mr. W. Harrison Ms —And Pantota
LEQUIN BEAUTY AND TSB BlAST.—Coodoctori7kr. A.
Mollon.—Commenco M too otinaloo to 7.

HAYMARKET.

Tam Emma. OUZ "ditiCRICIN 00USM. Mara.
Bothern and Ilnelutona ; Era E FltswEllam. -LAMMAS
PRINCE OR ABYWENLL Mr. Compton and MYs L Leaky.
—And MR.S. WEITL Mr. Compton and M 1 Hardier.

PRINCESWB.

Trio EVLMING, THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE M 1 Oosetsaos
Aylmer. —And the Pantomime, HIQUICT WITH THE TETT ;
or, Harlequin end Mother Shlpton. Juan. Whew, H. Power,
and Halford; Him A. Collinami.

BRITANNIA.
TBM Swum, the Pantomime, ABON HASSAN. Wm Lane
Mesas. gnat, lonia, Newham, and 3fdlie. Celeste Stephan
Tom Sayers and his two performing Halm—And SOME
BELLS THAT RANO.—Commence at half-past O.

NIGH WATIR AT LONDON BEIDGN.
TIDII DAY Maratmg, bb. LEA....AAmemoos. 6i. tom.
To-Gossow—Nornlng 66 41s.....Afteask, AL I.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 10.

Tea Underground Railway, to use a slang
phrase of the day, may now be called a great fact,
and may take its place as the subject for a hun-
dred gushing leaders. Like all new undertakings
—from the Thames Tunnel to the Great Eastern
—it will be looked upon, for a time, as the one
reformer of the hour. It will be credited
with a power of performing wonders which it is
never likely to possess, and will doubtless encou-
rage the birth of many followers and imitators.
The days of want of faith in railways have long
since passed, and superstitious belief has now taken
the place of coaching scepticism. The Under-
ground Railway is the newest enterprise of its
kind ; it is the one which creeps most closely to
our door-steps, and it will therefore doubtless be
the one which will meet with the most favour and
attention. For twenty or five and twenty years
the travelling MAHOMIT has been content to go to
the railway mountain, and now the railway moun-
tain is straggling to come to the travelling
Mansur. The travelling Msnourr can hardly
feel otherwise than flattered. It is his duty, at
any rate, to thank the railway shareholders for
their politeness and benevolence, and to ask no
troublesome questions about vulgar dividends.
The great work which the Underground Rail-
way is expected to perform is the relief of the
City traffic. It is expected to cut that Gordian
knot of vehicles and passengers which causes police-
men to be tyrannical and Common Councilmen to
make themselves ridiculous. What capacities it
has at present for performing this gigantic task are
not easily perceived by the impartial observer.
At Holborn-hill it threatens to become a
feeder of the City traffic, instead of a re-
liever. It will deliver goods and passengers
on the borders of the crowd, but it will hardly
deliver the City from its pressing difficulty. It
may ease certain broad thoroughfares in the out-
skirts, which were never troubled with an emcees of
traffic, bat it will leave the fifty great feeding ar-
teries of the City almost as choked as they were
before its coming. It may have & little influence
at Holborn-bars, but what it draws from that
point it will only pour out again at Victoria-street.
When its extension is finished to Finsbury-circus
—another railway of the future—Newgate-street
may have just cause to bless its existence, but at
present Newgate-street stands a chance of being
more blocked than ever by contributions to and from
its terminus. Al the fist creeping arm thrown out
towards a general centralization of all railways, it
may be welcomed or not, according to the way of
looking at it, but some time must elapse before
it can be fairly admired as a City traffic reformer.
As a junction line to the great Northern and
Western railways it has not even done its work
thoroughly and welL It has started from the
Great Western, and has picked up the Great
Northern in its course, but it has passed by a rail-
way of equal importance at Easton-square—the
London and North Western. It is not for us to enter
into or give publicityto the reasons assigned on both
ides for this palpable omission :—it is sufficient
to refer to the fact when the Underground Rail-
way is praised as a collector of all the heavy traffic
from the north and west of England.
The construction of the Underground Railway
is a matter which we may safely leave to profes-
sional critics, after expressing a belief, drawn from
personal observation, that the engineer and the
contractors have done their work well and honestly.
They have had great difficulties to contend with,
which they knew of before they turned a sod, and,
fed with unlimited supplies of capital, they have
overcome these difficulties. Backed by the Great
Western's shareholders and influence, by the Great
Northern's shareholders and influence, and the
Corporation of the City of London, who are anxious
to turn to profitable account the slimy desert of
Victoria-street, their success was certain. Money,
as we have before said, can do anything, and a
million and a quarter sterling, if we are rightly
informed, has built the Underground Railway.
Much time, which is also money, has been
consumed in the task, but the task, up to
a certain point, is finished. The tunnelling
of the Underground Railway is not
longer, or more impressive, than other railway
tunnelling, but it is imbedded in different soil.
There is the three-mile tunnel on the Manchester
and Sheffield line, there is the celebrated Box
tunnel on the Great Western Railway, built by an
engineer who generally sacrificed capital for
scientific display, and there is the Kilsby tunnel
on the North Western Railway. All these
works differ materially from tunnels which have to
be bored through a London street, between gas
pipes, water pipes, sewers, and telegraphic wires,
like the tunnels of the Underground Railway. In
their difficulties of construction they more re-
semble the Thames Tunnel, though we sincerely

hope that they will never become such a laughing-
stock for posterity.
The Underground Railway deserves credit for
one thing. Though it has been a nuisance for
years while in process of formation, it has cleared
up its litter, and has left no permanent eyesore
I above ground. All its merits and its faults lie
buried in the London clay and gravel ; and in this
it forms a worthy contrast to the works of other
companies. Telegraphic enterprise, in particular,
is a glaring offender in this respect, having
covered our not very picturesque town with a web
of tight-ropes and wire clothes-lines. Underground
ingenuity may surely do something for us here,
and relieve us from such a terrible infliction in the
name of utility.
The Underground Railway is already promised
several imitations in various parts of London.
A railway is planned from Leicester-square to
Kensington ; and those dripping wells of Wapping
and Rotherhithe, and that damp fragment of a
cavernous fair, which together go by the name of
the Thames Tunnel, are threatened with utiliza-
tion as an under-water railway. These are only
two out of the many similar projects which will
doubtless be brought before Parliament for its
sanction, and against which one or two indigna-
tion meetings have been held by frightened trades-
people. If present public convenience is made to
give way for future public benefit, let us hope that
the projectors will be merciful. They will neither
be backed with the capital nor the influence which
supports the present Underground Railway ; and
for their own sakes, therefore, we trust they will
make short work of their disagreeable task, and
save their shareholders, and the inhabitants near
their lines, from all unnecessary suffering.

OPENING Or THE FRENCH CHILMBERS.—The
Monittur of yesterday announces that the French
Emperor will open in person the legislative session
of 1863 in the grand hall of the Louvre on Monday
next, the 12th inst., and that he will receive the
oaths of those members who have not yet taken
them. The ceremony is to begin at one o'clock
precisely, and every one present is to be seated
by a quarter past 12 at the latest.

LATEST INTFILIGENOE.

POLAND.

The Czas of Warsaw eaya :

Out of the 66 persons tried by the military tribunal
three have been declared not guilty, and it has alio
demanded of the Grand Duke the liberation of nine others.
That request has been acceded to, and 12 innocent persons
have just left the prison. One of the accused complained
that the committee of inquiry had forced him to confirm
the denunciations of Piwoniski, the agent of the least
police, and that his own observations were not entered on
the proch-verbel. Another of the prisoners complained that
no ►ttention bad been paid to his demand when he called
for the evidence of a vanes. It is proved that the oom-
mittee of inquiry attributed to the accused replies which
they never made, and presented them as voluntary admis-
sions.

A SINGULAR ROMANCE.
(nom OUR °yrs onaseromarr.)

PARIS, FRIDAY Emma.

M. de Villemessant, the editor of the Figaro,
some time since informed his readers that he was
the illegitimate son of an unmarried lady of noble
family whose name he bore ; that out of filial
respect for his mother's memory he had long
withheld the legal evidence of bis parentage, but
that being harraseed and persecuted by some of
his mother's relations, represented by them as an
impostor, and actually prosecuted by them in a
court of law for bearing a name to which they
alleged he bad no right, he felt it his duty to his
children to lay aside the scruples which bad so
long restrained him, and, at a painful sacrifice of
feeling, to lay the whole case before the world and
the tribunals of the country. The facts thus
alluded to came out very fully on January 6,
before the civil tribunal of Blois, and they con-
stitute a very singular romance. The case exc►tes
intense local interest, and in the crowded
court were to be seen many members of the
oldest and most wealthy families in the
department, who had known M. de Villemessant
from his infancy, and among whom the circum-
stances of his birth were matter of notoriety. The
Count de Beaucorps de Crdquy, Madame de Bou-
vale, and M. de Clinchamp were among the wit-
nesses for K de Villemessant.

The present action, which arises out of one pend-
ing before the courts of Paris, is in the form of a
demand for a judicial declaration that the plaintiff
is in reality the natural son of the late Mademoi-
selle Louise Ren6e-Francoise de Launay de
Villemessant, who was the daughter of Philippe
Delannay de Villemessant, one of the body-guards
of Louis XVL, by his wife Louise Ran& Hurault
de Saint Denis. This form of action is, in the lan-
guage of the code, styled recherche de la makrnit4t
which is permitted, while, on the contrary, recherche
de fa paterniti—inquiry as to the paternity of an
illegitimate child—is prohibited by an express
article.

M. Lachaud, counsel for M. de Villemessant,
stated, in substance, that the mother of his client,
a lady of excellent family in Tonraine, was unfor-
tunately seduced by a Colonel Cartier, whom she
accompanied throughout Europe in the wars of the
Empire, in which he greatly distinguished himself.
By him she bad two children, the plaintiff, born at
Rouen in 1810, and a girl named Isoline, now de-
emed. After her elopement she bore the
name of Cartier, and that name was habi-
tually given to her children during their
infancy. Nevertheless, when the present
plaintiff at the age of 16 went through the catholic
ceremony of the first communion, he was described
by his name of De Villemessant, which was then re-
cognised both by his mother and grandmother. A
certificate of his birth at Rouen, in which he was
described as the son of Mdlle. de Villemessant, was
also among the proofs. That he was the son of
Mdlle de Villemeasant was notorious in Blois,
where he was known and liked as a dare-devil boy,
and where, to all those who knew his mother, the
striking likeness spoke for itself. The only diffi-
culty in the me was that at the age of 21 M. de
Villemesaant fell in love and married without his
mother's consent. On that occasion, in order to
evade the law, he procured an "act of notoriety."
in which he was described by the name of Cartier,
and as having been born in Poland of " parents
unknown." Soon after the marriage his mother
forgave him, and he lived on terms of affection
with her until her death, which happened in a
most tragical way in 1847. Colonel Cartier had
then been long dead, and she, having lost a law-
suit in which the whole of her expected fortune was
involved, was living in Paris in great poverty. M.
de Villemessant, himself poor at that time, had
helped his mother to the best of his ability, and one
of the proofs of her acknowledgment of him as her
son was a bill in her favour drawn by him, and
endorsed by her. However, in 1847 Mdlle. deVille-
measant and her daughter Isoline committed
suicide together, leaving letters in which they de-
sired that their little furniture in their lodging at
Montmartre might be given to the plaintiff. Ever
since that time the name of De Villemessant had
been borne by the plaintiff without dispute. But
very lately K Casein and Mme. Vezien, the legiti-
mate nephew and niece of his mother, brought an
action against him in Paris, in which they alleged
that hie only real name was Cartier, and that he
had no right to bear the family name of M. deVille-
messant. In answer to this action, the plaintiff,
not wishing to brand the memory of his mother,
contented himself with pleading the notoriety of
his name of M. de Villemessant. The tribunal
of Paris, however, held that in the face of the
"act of notoriety" obtained by himself on the
occasion of his marriage, the evidence of contrary
notoriety was not sufficient, and it accordingly
granted an injunction against his using the name
of De Villemessant. M. de Villemessant appealed,
and the court of appeal being informed of the ac-
tion to establish his parentage, which he had at
length decided to bring at Blois, adjourned the
case for three months to await the result of that
action. M. Lachaud now submitted that the
proof as to the matter of fact was clear as
noon-day. His adversaries, in fact, ad-
mitted this by declining to argue the
case on the merits, and confining themselves to
taking objection to the jurisdiction. He argued at
great length a point of law which is in reality the
only substantial question in dispute, i.e., whether
the various letters and certificates produced con-
stitute such a "commencement of proof in wilting"
as is required by the code to sustain an action of
this kind. The case stands over for a week, when
the public minister will be heard.
The motive of N. de Villemessant's opponents,
as stated by M. Lathaud, is simply to extort money.
He had lent them considerable sums from time to
time, they always writing to him as "My dear
I oonsin," and it was only when his patience was
tired out that they threatened to force him either
to drop his name or to brand the memory of his
mother.

The Bank of France returns show, aa was anti-
cipated, a considerable decline in the stock of bul-
lion. The increase in the discount department,
which, under ordinary circumstances, betokens
activity in trade, cannot be thus construed in the
present instance, because, as I am informed, the
greater part of the augmentation is attributable to
the discount of treasury bills necessitated by re-
mittances to Mexico. I further learn that imme-
diately after M. Fould's statement that the cost of
the Mexican expedition was 83,000,000, further
drafts wefts received to the extent of 22,000,000
more. According to some estimates the real ex-
penditure up to the present time is not less than
220,000,000.
The Bourse was heavy to-day in consequent* of
the comments made upon the Bank returns.
I am enabled to state that the paragraph which
has gone the round of the papers, representing that
Mr. Dayton, the American minister, had discussed

with the Emperor the project of an armistice in
America, is essentially untrue.
I have just heard that the Cowries du Disnanthe
has received a warning for last Sunday's article,
by M. Prevost Paradol, suggesting reforms in the
working of universal suffrage. I donot know thepre-
ciae grounds of the warning, but I believe one of them
is that M. Paradol objects to printed bulletins,
which are thrust by government agents into the
hands of ignor►nt people, who think they are bound
to use them, and that every elector should be
bound to prove his intelligence and real will by
writing the name of the candidate of his choice. I
can well conceive that this proposal to limit the
suffrage to people who can read and write may be
plausibly construed as a csae of flat blasphemy
against that universal suffrage which, as at present
organised, can never by any possibility fail to echo
the commands of the executive power.

Mozart's Requiem was performed this day, at
12 o'clock, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame for the
repose of the souls of the archbishops of Paris,
whose coffins are to be placed in the vault lately
prepared for them under the choir. The bodies of
those of M.gre. Pierre de Marca, deceased in 1662;
Hardouiu de PiSrlffize de Beaumont, in 1671 ;
Francois de Harley de Champvallou, in 1695 ;
Charles de Vintimille, in 1746 ; Christophe de
Beaumont, in 1781 ; Antoine Leclerc de Juign6,
who resigned in 1801 ; Cardinal de Belloy, de-
ceased in 1808 ; Cardinal de Talleyrand-Perigord,
in 1821 ; Hyacinthe de Quelen, in 1839 ; Denis
Afire, in 1848 ; Auguste Sibour, in 1857 ; and Car-
dinal Morlot, in 1862.