The Express.
London, England, 1852-08-25 00:00:00

France and introduced into Belgium, 10fr. This
different* in the duties explains itself by the dif-
ference in the price of manufacturing books in the
two countries; it constitutes, in fact, perfeet equality.
The architect of the Elyst,e has drawn up a report,
after due investigation, on the fire which lately broke
out at the Elysee, and has reed his work to the Pre-
sident. The report, I hear, concludes that the fire
was not accidentally occasioned, as had been sup-
posed, by the overheating of a stove, but was the
result of inafice prepense on the part of persons who
gained access to the premises, certain artificial com-
bustibles having been discovered in the bureau of the
President's cabinet. The President, having listened
calmly to the report, said at the close, " No, it was
the stove." The conclusions of the report will not, I
therefore, be made officially public. In consequence
of the acute malady from which the Prince suffers,
he has adopted latterly a strict regimen and spare
diet.
Alexandre Dumas, who has been settled in Bel-
gium since the 2nd December, although not included
in any list of proscription, has just returned to Paris
by way of the Rhine and Strasbiurg.
The Unirers has this startling criticism upon
Prondhon's book :

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The author is not content with insulting according to his
custom, the clergy, Christianity, and Oud'himself: he goes
further—he insults the emperor and the empire.
In addition to the concessions for railways which
have just been signed by the Minister of Public
Works, the 7Mbats Nye:
There is another project now under consideration by the
rovuetr,menertoincoardteenrdtiot wasrafpalreaste tthlllifnroenotfierair olfwgedomfotnhte,
on the side of the Var, by starting from Marseilles or front
Toulon. In order fur this line to produce any useful re-
sults, it is necessary that the two governments of Prance and
Piedmont should act In concert. Nothing, certainly, could
be more easy ;.their interests are common, and they are
animated with the best feelings of extents cordial. one
towards the other. In this ease the Piedmonteas govern-
ment would not hesitate to welcome the propositions of the
companies which undertake to open a railway from Nics to
Coedit., or Allninga, and to continue it the whole length
of the Volley of Tanana es far as Cheraseo, where it would
connect itself with that which is now open from Turin to
Milan by Novare. In still following the course of the
Tonere, the line would naturally run from Cheri's.° as
far as Aste, when it would join the Alexandria line, the
real nucleus of the railways of Upper. Italy, for from
Alexandria they go on one side to loran and the Lago
Maggiore, and on the other to Voghere, Modena, Bologna,
and Ancona. Consequently this new line would connect
France and the Mediterranean with Bwitterland, Lom-
bardy, the Legations, and the Adriatic. It is, therefore,
useless to insist further on Its great importance. The valley
of the Tanaro is only separated from the sea by a small
ridge which unites the Appenines to the chain of the Alps,
and which can be easily made practicable by piercing a tun-
nel of little more than half a mile in length.
At the Bourse the Four-and-a-Half per Cents. rose
30, and closed at 105.30; the Threes, tree 55, and
closed 70.55. Bordeaux and Teato Railway rose
22.50; the other lines varied but little from yester-
day.

The first number of the Pays, re-organised andsold
at the reduced price of 40f. a year, appears to-day.
This journal, since its editor, M. do la Cluerronniere,
the old republican fellow-labourer of Oirardin and
Lamartine, became the thick and thin supporter of
the present government, has been famous for distinc-
tions without differences. This characteristic seems
likely to be preserved under the new management.
M. do la Cluerrouniere retaining his post of " redac.
teur en chef." The puff preliminary of twelve
columns which inaugurates the new number begins
by asserting that old journalism died with the
institutions of which it was the image, and
the passions of which it was the echo, and that
imodern journalism remains to be created. The
newspapers that, blind to the transformation of
society effected on December 2, continue to write
upon the old system, preach in a desert. No one
listens to them. Party polemics are dead, but poli-
tics are as full of vitality as ever. Formerly politics
were concentrated in the person of one man, a king,
and when this man was called Charlemagne, Philip
Augustus, Louis XII., Henry IV., Louis XIV., this
man in his formidable power represented the nation
of which he was the head. In later times politics
were spread over the tiers Nat, parliaments, states-
general, revolutionary assemblies, committees of pub-
lic safety, tribunes, parties, coteries, coalitions, and
salons. All this the Pays pretends is at an end,
and politics are now, not as the vulgar might suppose,
temporarily suppressed by a military despotism, but
diffused more widely than ever. They are so longer
confined to a king, a dynasty, a class, a party, but
belong to everybody (" tout Is monde.") The dif-
ference between the old and new order of things is
then defined. Before December 2 politics meant
divers opinions, opposing passions often generous
but always dangerous, ardent rivalry and ego-
tistic competition ; now they mean practical and
positive interests, moral mil material progress,
possible and just ameliorations, intelligence,
property, capital, labour. This, says the new
Pays, is transformed politics and regenerated jour-
nalism; as if there had been no question of the
moral and material interests of society before the
coup creltat, and as if it were now possible to discuss
them apart from human passions, without
exciting hostile interests, and without provoking
difference of opinion. The promises of novelty made
by the new journal are in harmony with this strain
of reasoning. A low price and kgreat deal for the
money aro the temptations held out to subscribers.
It is nothing new that a journal should be sold for as
low a price as can be remunerative. If the Pays
does more than this it will either make a bad specu-
lation, or, which is probably to be the case, its kilo;
must be indemnified by the government that it sup-
ports. The novelty of tho matter to befurnisbed by
the regenerated print consists only in the form of its
prospectus. The Pays promises to be twelve news-
papers rolled into one. It is to be :-1, a religious
journal; 2, a journal of public instruction; 3, a
financial journal; 4, an agricultural journal;
6, an administrative journal; 6, a commercial and
statistical journal; 7, a law journal; 8, an army
journal ; 0, a navy journal ; 10, a journal of public
works; 11, a journal of the sciences ; and 12, a
medical journal. This list, so ostentatiously num-
bered, is nothing more than an enumeration of the
principal heads of intelligence to be found daily in
all the unregenerated organs of public information.
There is as complete an absence of novelty in it as in
Dr. Vetoes " New France." It must, however, be
admitted that the prospectus holds out an imposing
list of names, as forming the editorial staff of the
new enterprise. M. de Cormenin, the author of
the republican constitution of 1848, recently
converted to Bonapartism, and now a Coun-
cillor of State ; M. Ferdinand Barret, an
ex-minister of the interior, and a councillor of state;
M. Le Verricr, senator and member of the institute ;1
M. Villemain, military commissary and councillor of
state; M. Clot, an ex-mayor of Paris; M. Godelle,
ex-representative and councillor of state; M. Ha-
vaisson, member of the institute, and inspector-
general of the university; M. Barbaroux, councillor
of state; Baron de Bourgoing, formerly a peer ofl
France, and as ambassador ; the well-known Amedee
de Comm, the notorious Omnier de Cassagnac, M.
Josseau, a converted republican ; and Doctor Emery,'
physician to the Senate, are all expected to contri-
bute articles upon subjects with which, respeetively,
they are especially familiar. It is not to be sup-
posed that all these eminent, but for the most part
place-bunting personages, intend to give their ser-
vices to the Pays from pure patriotism. It is be-
jond the bounds of probability that the profits of the
ournal can suffice to remunerate them. The in-
ference therefore is, either that their names are
used for effect, like the names in a play bill, not one
half of whom ever appear before the public, or that
they are government agents, employed to support
government measures in print, and to be paid
with public money.
The inhabitants of Caen have received a "frater-
nal " letter from the town of Chelmsford. This is
the commencement of a correspondence intended to
be carried on between some fifty English towns and
the principal towns in Fiance. The idea originated
in England. I know not upon what principle the
corresponding towns aro to be paired. In the pre-
sent instance there is the same alphabetical affinity
as between Macedon and Monmouth, and in the im-
portance of the cider mart of Normandy and the
capital of corn-growing Essex there is no striking
disparity. The Ordre et In Liberte7 of Caen, which I
have nut been so fortunate as to see, publishes a
translation of the letter of the burgesses of Chelms-
ford, and announces that the Mayor of Caen will
write an answer iu the name of his fellow-towns-
men.

Snoonno &num—ln the night of the 10th and
11th of August there were counted in the observatory at
Borne the extraordinary number of 84G shooting stars.