The Express.
London, England, 1865-11-20 00:00:00

PARIS, SMOLT Drlol6.
The trial of K Richard, adjoint of the Mayor
of Tours, was brought to a conclusion yesterday.
He was found guilty of having, while presiding at
a municipal election, substituted for the voting
papers banded him by the electors others of his
own concocting, and thus grossly and palpably
falsifying the election, for the fair and Isgal con-
duct of which be was, above all other • persons,
responsible. The text of the judgment has not
yet come to hand, but it appears from the telegram
that the court has awarded him the benefit Of
extenuating circumstances. He is only sentenced
to a month's imprisonment and a fine of
1,000 franca. Inadequate as this sentence is,
its moral effect in repressing official
zeal will be tremendous. It is now known that is
the early days of the empire such crimes were com-
moll, but then it would have been not only perilous
but useless to denounce them. They will now be
far MOM difficult than formerly ; I myself have not
confidence enough in the machinery of the French
ballot to say that they are yet impossible.
It results from& correspondence between the editor
of the independarree Beige and the French Poet-
office that every prefect and even every sub-prefect
has a discretion to retard the delivery of bed* • - •
journals in France. A paper distributed at Paris
may be confiscated at Lille, Bordeaux, or Mar-
seilles. Formerly the prefect of the Nord used to
keep the Belgian journals longer on Sunday than
other days, just as they do in Paris. That, says
the editor of the LidEpendassee, was a very natural
thing, for Sunday being a holiday, those " pariahs,"
foreign journals, might well wait while the autho-
rities were hunting, shooting, or fishing. But noir
the weekly exception has passed into a rule, and ft
happens more often than not that the Belgian
papers are not distributed till thirty-six or forty
hours after their arrivaL
The election in the Yonne begins to-clay. An
elector notices in a local journal the extraordinary
reasons put forward by the prefectoral press on
behalf of K Frdmy. Formerly canvassers were
wont to speak of the talent, independence, and
high character of a candidate. But times are
changed, and now the arguments used to induce
the electors of the Yonne to vote for K Frimy
are : 1. That he has a large private fortune ;
2. That his influence with the government will
advance the private interests of the electors ; and
S. That he has been invited to Compibgne !
The Marquise Pontevbs de Sabra°, 'Me de Cbe.
vreuae, a granddaughter of the Duke c'e Luynes,
is just dead at the Chateau de Lac, near Narbonee,
from the constquences of a bad confinement.
At Gagny (Seine et Oise), on the property of the
Marquis de Nicolay, there exists an old elm tree,
under whit% the pastoral poet Florian loved to sit
and meditate. It has long been called by the
neighbours "L'oetne de Florian." The Mayor and
Municipal Council of Gagny have solicited the
Marquis de Nicolay to dedicate this elm to the
public, and be having consented, it has been fenced
in with iron railings, and seats have been placed
around its trunk. K Yiennet, the academician,
being asked to write an inscription to be placed on
the tree, composed the following lines, which may
now be read on a tablet affixed to it :
Florian me cherit ; mos ottbre Pumpira.
J'espZre qa'S mon tour eon aom me &Nedra.
[Flo.-iao loved me ; be found inspiratice coder my shade.
Let me hops that his same will protect me from outrage. J
It was lately rumoured that the author of the
Maudit--an attack upon the church of Rome,
professedly written by a priest, which had an im-
mense success two years ago—was dead, and that
he had died in the odour of sanctity, after having
recanted everything he bad written. Subse-
quently this report was contradicted, and a Parisian
journalist testified to having heard from
the publisher of the Maudit that its
author was alive and well, and had been
lately dining with cardinals at Rome, they, how-
• ever, little suspecting who he was. The new
journal the Erenement now publishes a letter from
a contributor, who asserts that he knows the author
' of the Maudit and beard passages of his
work read ten years ago. He knows also some of
the ecclesiastics described in the book, one of whom
is now a shopkeeper in the Passage Jo, on and an
assiduous attendant of the Bourse. The correspon-
dent of the Erenement has hitherto kept the secret,
but he thinks the revelations lately made relieve
him from the obligation (if any there were) to do
so any longer, and he proposes to publish the me-
moirs of the author of the Maudit in the Brine-
ment. The editor accepts the offer.
it