The Express.
London, England, 1856-07-26 00:00:00

did not prevent the people from crowding the town
the whole day, but it only permitted his Majesty to
show himself sometimes upon his balcony, in return
for the acclamations of which he was the object.
The Emperor, upon learning the distress that pre.
vaned in two of the adjacent communes, gave to
each of them the sum of 10,000 francs, which will
be immediately invested, and thus become the (con•
dation of an annual income for the two charitable
institutions there.

The General of Division, Count Rogue, A.D.C. of
the Emperor, has jut left for Marseilles, as the beam
of a latter from his Majesty to Marshal Pilimier.
The Emperor desired that his 000gratulatiou might
be the first which the Marshal would receive, is
placing his foot on the soil of France.

THE EAST.

TRIESTB, FRIDAY.

Amounts from Constantinople to the 18th, state
that the Russians have occupied the Island of her•
pente, the possession of which is claimed by Turkey
by virtue of the treaty of peace. They have refused
to admit the English commissioners into Kan, de.
glaring that they will not give up that fortress until
Turkey ku been completely evacuated by the Allies.

PIEDMONT.

(root ova ITALIAN 0011111/1101r11.)
TURIN, Jor.r 21.
As, in my communications from Naples, Rome,
Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Mien, it ias been
altogether unnecessary to trench on the province of
your regular fixed correspondents at those points, by
any report of merely local news—of which they keep
you so perfectly au jolt--so here, in completing my
' rapid, but I believe accurate, survey of the state of
popular feeling amongst the Italians themselves, on
the question of their own governmental grievances,
I leave to their proper chronicler all incidents of
current Turin news, and confine myself in the follow.
ing few
paragraphs
to a short sketch of the public
feeling here on the topic that occupies all minds,
and, thanks to perfect freedom of the press and of
speech, gives employment to nearly every tongue.
Doubtless most of what I have to say will be in no way
new to your readers; but it will, at least, be some
addition to the mans of illustrative testimony already
borne on a subject on which it is of the highest pre.
sent importance that the British public should be
well and truly informed, and in this point of view,
therefore, may not be wholly wanting in interest.
Whilst the Austrians and their policy are held
in general detestation, the French and English—very
especially the latter—are as universally favourites.
As Piedmont itself is the beacon and the hope of
Italy, so do the Piedmontese just now consider the
two great Allies to be the hope and safeguard of
Piedmont. To what degree we may be indebted for
this popularity to the policy of our Foreign-office in
regard to Italy I cannot pretend to say, but I am
confident that we owe more than three-tourths of it,
at all events, to the present deep and loudly-expressed
sympathy felt throughout England with the whole
Italian people, from the Alps to Calabria, and to the
warm advocacy of Italian liberty by the English
press. For this last, the gratitude of all classes
is very great, aware, as at least the educated orders
are, of the influence of British journalism net merely
over our own ministry of the day, but on the whole
public opinion of Europe. Hardly a number of any
one of the *even or eight local prints ever appears
without copious extracts from your own columns, or
those of your liberally disposed contemporaries, on
the all-absorbing question of Italian wrongs and their
remedies; whilst even the words of our say much.
and-do-nothing Premier are caught up and circulated
over the land with nearly as much eagerness as if
editors and readers believed that his lordship's mean-
nothing parliamentary periods had even the remotest
chance of ever leading to any other practical result
than disappointment to all who trust in them. As to
the Emperor of the French, public opinion rightly
judges that, if it be considered his own interest to aid
the cause of Italian liberty, he will do so, and not
mheeeriee; and lest to the 'steer ,bar such a =Ain.
gooey may be supposed to
,justify are he and era
government relied upon for support in the
miming struggle —as come a struggle mud.
The French people, on the other hand, get
credit for an honest and disinterested sym-
pathy with the wrongs and aspirations of Italian
patriots; but, ciphers as they are known to be is
reiwot of soy power over the ruler or his policy,
little practical value is set on their good wishes. In
the fact, however, of his alliance with our own
government, do the Piedmont'se see their safest
hope of aid from Louis Napoleon ; and as long as
this unity of policy and of action between the two
great Western Powers las% the French and their
sovereign will share in the Confidence and goodwill
which Italians, for the most part, now extend towards
them in common with ourselves. Were this alliance
once dissolved, I venture to believe that throughout
Italy, France would be thought of with more of
anxious dread than of grateful and reliant hope;
and for the sake, therefore, of Italian emancipation,
even if for no other, let us pray that this harmony
may long continue, bearing fruit everywhere in
terror to tyrants and succour to the oppressed.
In the meantime, the thunders and lightnine of
Papal wrath seem to have scathed, or even fright-
ened, nobody. Young and old of every class appear
to enjoy life u entirely as if heaven were still open to
them, and the blighting curse of excommunication
had never been pronounced on their Pope-defrauding
land. Whatever may be the effect of the anathema
in regions beyond the ken of mortal eye, it would
certainly puzzle the most orthodox of optics to
discover any resultant evil from it here. lam told
that there is, if anything, more popular light-heart.
edam's, without at the same time au iota of greater
moral laxity, than existed before pontifical charity
doomed the country to damnation. Religion is still
held in reverence, and its ministers are not a whit
the less respected; whilst in all points of material
progress Piedmont hes gone vastly a-head. It may
be that the cup of the nation's iniquity is not yet full,
and that such a judgment is ripening for it aa will be
a standing warning through all future time to every
recalcitrantly disposed fief of holy church; but
till that punitive bolt falls, heretics are likely
to set as light value on Papal interdicts
u do the Piedmontees themselves. Compro.
miss not coercion, would have been the Holy
Father's wisest policy here, not merely in view of
dollars, bat yet more for the sake of his now pee-
-1 maneetly damaged prestige. A few more such harm.
less excommunications, and the catholic world gene-
rally will begin to lose its dread of Vatican thunders,
as I believe to be the case at this moment, not in
Piedmont alone, but also over by far the greater part
of the other Italian states.
To these few remarks on the present tone of public
sentimeet in Piedmont, I cannot forbear adding a
closing observation on the difference between the
working of the passport system in this tree country,
and its operation in the Lombard and southern pro-
winces. Some seven weeks ago I landed at Naples,
since which I have traversed the country thence up •
through the whole interior of the peninsula to Venice,
and from Venice across Lombarny hither—requiring
for the journey no fewer than thirty•one vim to my
passport, for more than twenty of which high fees—
ranging from one to four francs—have been charged.
Since entering Piedmont, my passport has only once
been asked for on the frontier: neither in Turin,
nor during any of the short tours I have made
hence into the country districts, has a sight of it ever
coos been demanded. On the Lombard and Tuscan
railways I was pulled up—in common with every.
body e n the approach to almost every other
station, by a couple of police agents, whose business
it is at these short intervals to go the round of the
train for this purpose, and received or not their im-
primatur to my Foreign-office voucher of nationality.
Nor is it at all on foreigners alone that this vexations
and absurd rigour falls; natives of the country cannot
go from one town to soother, nor hardly from one
railway station to another—where there are railways
—be the distance what it may, without special police
authorisation. Here, native or stranger may travel
anywhere within the boundaries of the country, with.
out a wrap of certifica•ed proof of his trustworthiness.
Trifling as the illustration is, look upon this picture
mid oo that, and read in the two a small commentary
on the degree of confident stability enjoyed by a free
as compared with a despotic, government.