The Express.
London, England, 1865-12-27 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND THE
FOREIGS.
DMZ OUR OWN 00111NIONDINS.)
PARIS, TUMMY Evxmsg.
The French government has prohibited the
culation of the Independence Beige in France. The
Petrie gives the following extraordinary explanation
of this extraordinary measure. The government
has resolved to assimilate sa fer as possible the legal
conditionsof the foreign press to those imposed upon
the French press. The Indipewlence Beige having
been several times seized, each seizure is to be
reckoned as a "warning " and, just as a French
journal may be suspended after three warnings, a
foreign journal will be interdicted after three seizures.
This ingenious theory has been broached before,
but was taken for a joke. In now professing
to act upon it, the French government is showing
its teeth 'without being able to bite. It will strive
in vain to effect the darling object of exercising
jurisdiction over the foreign press. It may bribe,
as it often has done ; but the wretched prints which
it subsidises always perish faster than it cane to
fiud the money. It cannot intimidate, because the
knowledge of the fact that a certain paper contains
French news which cannot be read in France will
always procure fgr that paper additional readers
elsewhere. There can be no halting between two
opinions on such a matter as this. The French
laws on the press are abominable, the worst in
Europe ; they are the shame of Frenchmen
and the laughing-stock of England, Belgium,
Germany, and Italy. Liberty, even as in
Austria, has long been the cry of French
journalists. The set of public opinion in
Franoe,as evidenced at every election, must shortly
force government to remodel these laws in a liberal
sense. The attempt to extend them at this time of
day to foreign journals—to " assimilate," in the
insolent language of the Paine, the rules governing
the French and the foreign press—is about as sense-
less and contemptible an enterprise as could be

conceived.
The Phare de la Loire and the Gazette du Midi
have received warnings for having, on the autho-
rity of their Paris oorrespondents, published the
false news that there had been political demon-
strations at the Polytechnic School, St. Cyr, and
the Beaux Arta.
Maximilian of Mexico appeals
to be overflow-
ing with wealth. General Marquez, his envoy
extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte, arrived at
Jerusalem on December 6, accompanied by a
secretary of legation and M. Pedro de Hato, who
is to be installed as Mexican consul-general.
The envoy is stated by the Moniteur to have
brought with him "very rich presents" for the
Holy Sepulchre, and he has moreover announced
Maximilian's intention to organise a national
subscription in Mexico for the purpose of
sending an offering to Jerusalem every year.
The Emperor and Empress., in a private carriage,
and without escort, went to-day to witness the
opening of the new Tribunal of Commerce, trans-
ferred from the Bourse to a court bunt on purpose,
opposite the Palais de Justice.
It is announced, but with what is called " a
certain discretion " in the phraseology used, that
the King and Queen of Portugal were at the masked
ball at the Opera on Saturday night. Their Ma.
jesties propose to leave Paris on Thursday.
Madame Frasey-Berthelier, an admired young
actress, of the Bouffes, who was only lately married,
has just died from a brain fever, brought on by
the fright she experienced a fortnight ago from an
explosion of gas while she was performing in Offen-
bach's charming new comic opera, Les Bergcrs.
She was but 22. Her first appearance on the stage
was at the Gait, in the Nan d'Ane.

The Roman EvBnement, in an article on the dif-
ferent Cbristmu dishes in vogue in various countries, states
that Englishmen delight in turkey, mince pace, and plum

keake.
A private despatch from Vienna, addressed to
the Minos MI Diplornatique, states that on the 22nd inst.,
at 11 o'clock in the morning, there took place in the
parochial chapel of the court, a funeral service for the re-
pose of his late Majesty King Leopold L
One of the most decided brouillards, or, as the
French begin to cell it, "fop of England," went over
Paris on Sunday night, to the surprise and disgust of the
Parisians, who have not experienced anythiog like this
"darkness visible" before. The authorities provided the
pollee with torches, and every preoantion was taken to
prevent accidents. The night being Christmas-eve, mid-
night mimes were to be performed at the churches of most
districts of the city, but at Notre Deane and other places
of worship the ceremony did not take place, as the fog we.
supposed to keep people at home.
" Carlotta Patti," says • Florence letter, " has
taken leave of us sod is gore to Tarim. She made her last
adieux in two acts of Lucia and two acts of the Trariata.
That her Lucia was not more successful must be attributed
to the mediocrities who supported her. The King
humored the two last performances with hie presence. On
each oarlike he Miaowed Dearly two acts in the box of
the Glued Duelsess Maria of Russia."
Two hundred convicts have just left France for •
New Caledeala. The first cargo sailed last year, and con-
sisted of 72 seessdna, 115 robbers, with a fair sprinkliag of
men convicted of forgery, indecent assaults, and other
ofieucee. These &gam prove that capital punishment,
though it may be awarded by a majority of seven to five in
the jury-room, is the exception, and not the rule, where
murder has been proved.
On the 16th Vesuvius was powdered over with
snow, and the mountains all round the bay are still thickly
covered--s remarkable phenomenon, and promising a
severe winter.
The Naples correspondent of the Times, writing
on the 11th says :—" It is with much regret that, I have to
report the death this week of so English geutleman, Mr.
I Harkey, eon of the banker of that name. so well known in
Ragland. He bad been in Naples nine mouths, and had
weathered the storm which had burst open us until bist
Wednesday night, when he was taken ill with °holm, and
died the next messing. The malady is, however, so much
, on the decline that people are beginning to return."
No TELEGRANS.-11 is a remarkable fact that
yesterday naming tie entire metropolitan prim was
without telegisiOie iatelligeses of any description.
Throughout Christmas Day, and up to • late hoar on
Boxing Day, not one message, 000tinental or otherwise,
for the London journals, bad reached Mr. Renter's office.
The day which succeeded Christmaa, 1864, brought us three
I or four unimportant telegrams from Europium sister, be-
sides • keg desp•tait from Queenstown announcing the
arrival of the Americas mail with sews of that great march
of General Sherman which turned the tide of war in fa-
vour of the North, sad which eventually led to the our.
reader of the South.