The Express.
London, England, 1863-05-22 00:00:00

CHANGE OF MINISTRY IN GREECE

ATHENS. Mar 17 (vii Trieste).
A change of Ministry has taken place. The
names of the new Ministers are as follows :
President of the Council M. Rao&
Minister of the Interior M. Lendidis.
Minister of Finance M. Komundurus.
Minister of Justice M. Pieria.
Minister for Foreign Affairs M. Trelganni.
Minister for War .
Minister of the Marine M. Canaria.
Minister of Publio Worship M. Califrinoa.
The National Assembly has voted an address,
conveying its thanks to the three protecting Powers
for the benefits they have hitherto conferred upon
Greece.

M. Gamier Pagbs has sent us the copy of a letter
which he has addresand to M. &troche, and which
IN is unable to publish in France. The following
is a translation :
In the heat of dirinasion you have allowed words of
hatred and of anger against the government of 1848 to
escape your lips. I have hesitated to truer them, be-
cause I experience extreme repugnance to reply to =just
attacks. But it was at election time, sad in connexion with
the elect oos, that you uttered these words; and as there is
a more decided solidarity now between the past of 1848 sod
the future, I cannot remain silent; and .I wish without
rancour and without bitterness to afford you an opportunity
of retracting what you must regret having said.
After the suicide of the monarchy by King Louis Philippe
the provisional government, born of necessity and of public
safety, received your eager adhesion. It was you who as
Eatoonier des Avocets, came and wished it =OMB I. the
name of the bar of Paris, and when after seventy does of
dictatorship during the storm it loyally surrendered its
powers to the Constituent Assembly, it was you who voted
the decree that it had " well merited of the country."
Subsequently you asked to join a reunion of repretoutativos,
the presidency of which I had the honour of sliarbig with
M.M. Dupont de FEetre, Amigo, and Mario.
• Why therefore do yet now seek to stigmatise a motto
tbni in which you participated, and past events la which
you were coecerned ? Do you we thus repudiate
yourself? Wby not recognise services rendered? Did they
not exceed and efface the faults that may have been com-
mitted? Were not your movements, year adhesions, and
your votes justified by these measures of the government of
1848 ; the punishment of death for political offences abo-
lished ; slavery abolished ; the political oath abolished ;
universal suffrage established ; every kind of liberty pro-
claimed ; the army and the navy re-organised ; gratuitous
public instruction established upon the broadest basis ; dis-
count banks and general magazines crested ; postal reform
accomplished ; the Bank of France yield by Its wee sad
the small coupons Deng declared legal tendon ; the float-
Mg debt reduced from 960 mallow to 320 mtllione ; all the
debts of the monarchy liquidated ; public credit popularised,
coesolidated, extended; the cosetry snatched from the
ddelscaoar at bankruptcy, without paper money or forced
loans, by a trifling temporary wierifice of 160 millions ob-
tained from those most heavily taxed, the poor being
exempt, and largely compensated, moreover, by the aboli.
Lion of the duty on salt ?
Then as to the permanent reproach against the Minister
of the Interior, M. Ledra Rollie, for a circular relating to
the Comminaiones, the majority of whom had been taken
from among the members of the Left and the Left•Centre.
Whiners the victims of those proconsuls! Names single
one. Empty prisons, unlimited individual liberty—such
are the facts. It is time that the truth should be known,
and that it should be no longer disguised by hostile
sentiments.
As to the national workshops, the unavoidable wee•
gnome of public distress, and the expense of which, it ought
to be knows, did not exceed fifteen millions (of frame), you
doubtless thought that the time for finding fault with them
would have been ill-chosen in 1848.
I leave to others more qualified to reply to what you have
mid of the government of General Cavaignac. But bow
i.
it that you have attacked the very act which does most
honour to that government—the surrender, so worthily
performed, of power to its successor?
I stop here. I will not add to my letter comparisons
which might seem recriminations. May God judge between
you and us.—Your farmer oollessus, GAMMA Paoxs.
To IL Earache, ex-Deputy.

THE CHURCH OP THE HOLY SEPULCHRE AT
JERUSALEM.-EXPRAORDINARY SCENES.

A correspondent of the Tones, who was • witness
of the great ceremonial of the Greek church at Jerusalem •
few weeks ago, and of the still greater ceremonial of the
ereabined Greek, Armenian, and Coptic churches with re-
sped to the " Holy Fire," gives • deplorable account of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. "In all the earldom" he
rye, "in the entire circuit of the apes, in all the ',lmpala,
in the Church of the Invention of the Crow, io our Saviour's
prism, in all the aisles, min and desolation are making
rapid strides—not a pillar, not a floor, not a wall, not
• roof is fit for the limns of God. Certain pothole of
the floor and moles are used for the purposes of our
humanity—indeed, on this occasion any but the most
conspicuous parts were used by any one, and the
obscenities that met the eye were truly disgusting.
The effluvium that hung about was unbearable. It
was, of course, rendered worse by the quantities of
food which was being eaten and brought to be eaten by
thousands of beings during the next 24 hours ; but the
state of every part of the church (other than the Lain
church and the Greek nave) is • disgrace io its rottenness
and in its filth ; while, worm than all, in the very rotunda
where the sepulchre stands, one quarter of the noble dome
is completely uncovered and gone, large pieoes of the
remaining framework are banging down, the rest is as rotten
as the wood in an old barn, and the rain oo that night
pattered down on the spot where our Saviour was laid. I
stood for a quarter of an hour in • large puddle with an
umbrella up, within six feet of the grave which Joseph
of Arimathes selected because it bad been unde-
filed by the presence of man. What a mockery
wee the accumulated defilement before my eyes—
food, excrement, imprecations, blasphemy, dirt, and
desolation, redolent and resonant around !" At the
first ceremonial, there were present in the corridor of the
Latin church, where our Lord appeared to Mary es the
gardener (and which, with the Greek nave, is the only part
that is properly preserved). two or three hareem of ladies,
who had to see the Giaour's show. They were evidently
rich, and were a refreshing sight amid the mess of squalid
misery, dirt, and filth which lay mooed. "Their beds and
night-deemed were of the softest and whitest ; their cover-
lets of the richest silks ; they eat up Wishing and chatting,
and Smalling to each other with the smallest of hands, the
whited of arms, and the darkest of eyes. They pulled
their yesbmaka down that the Giaoor might see their faces.
Their black maids bustled about over the beds, and the
young ladies ducked their heads ender. and then put them
out again sod sat up sad laughed till the place rang again,
while three tall eunuchs knelt with drawn sword, in front
of that soft mass of down and silk and flesh, perfumed
with rose-attar."
As a pageant, the ceremonial was magnificent. " Flags
and banners, mitred beads, crosiers and diamonds, deep
bass voices, three thousand hands armed with the living
flame, cremes and genuflexion'', incense and blessings, Homan
candles and other sweetmeats, all made up a video which
million have come from the distant parts of the earth to
see, and none should on any account omit who are near the
Holy Land at Eastertide."
The second spectacle, that of the " Descent of the
Fire," was by daylight. As time drew on, men
seemed to go out of their minds with excitement.
The refrain would be taken up by the Armenians, "Jesus
Christ shed His blood for us, for us, for us." The Greeks
and the Copts would continue it in the same words, the
staves would get louder and Ruder, —each would dwell on
the last " for us," as if it meant for us alone, when one of
an opposing sect would shriek out., " That's a lie; it was
not for you ;" then a fight and a general drimnisp of all
who were Dear the combatants, till the whack, whack,
whack of • certain Turkish colonel who kept order by means
of a terrible whip, brought half a dozen broken heeds and
..:Awed minds to reason. Half-mdozen of these lights oc-
curred during three-quarters of an hour preceding the cere-
monial. They are almost always asompanied by assassins.
tior, and this year was no exception to the rule, for • man
was stabbed and died. At last, at half-past two. the
bell sounded and the pageant began. Preceded by
his clergy, the Greek patriarch came forth in
gorgeous apparel of white, followed by the Arme-
nia& bishop, in the absence of the Armenian
patriarch. While the deep voices of the clergy saes the
hymn of prayer sod praise, be moved slowly three
Tinecti round the Holy Sepulchre, and then, followed by
the Armenian bialtop, and by him alone, he opened and
entered the sacred door sod passed within. As the door
eldest on them the excitement of the populace was beyoad
all belief—shrieks, arms tossed on high, 'nursed dresses torn,
were the external proofs of • tempest that raged within.
It was exactly seven minutes that this (rem lasted before
it was gratified by the sight of the heaven-sent flame. The
theory is that the Armenian patriarch stays in the ante.
chapel, where is the stone on which sat the angel at the
door of the sepulchre, and that the Greek patriarch goes
into the sepulchre itself, which is only large enough to hold
three or four persons, and after player receives the flame
direct from heaves.
" During the seven minutes that the patriarch was
closeted with the angel, who, many say, brings the lIMII4I,
I observed a number of men in white aprons sad
and with white skull caps, exactly like cooks. din::
learnt. were ardent devotees, anxious to be the fret to
edge the living fire, sod that the object of the dress was
to prevent the burning of their hair and their persons.
They crowded round a little low aperture communicating
with the angers anteroom. AU of • sudden oars of these
1 men gave a most unearthly howl, and, springing to
his feet, rushed forth with • flambeau, the flame of
which was certainly as big as a Guardsman's besoldo. The
nous, and the motion, and the figure combined, it seemed