The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-16 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

EXPECTED RUPTURE BETWEEN FRANCE
AND ITALY.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS. SUNDAY EVENING.

I have reason to believe that a diplomatic rup-
ture between France and Italy is imminent. Gene-
ral Menabrea, after doing his utmost to preach
patience though not resignation, is so pressed by
public opinion that he feels the necessity of doing
" something." In all probability, whether there
shall be a change of ministry at Florence or not,
Baron de Malaret will receive his passports next
week, and the Chevalier Nigra will be recalled from
Paris. The French government fully expects these
events.

According to the Temps M. Signs will not be re-
called in anger against Franco but simply re-
placed by M. Visconti Venosta. I believe, how-
ever, that the situation is more serious than the
Temps supposes. It is rumoured that M. Nigra
will be sent to London.

The Journal de Paris contains the following
rather alarming news :

Our correspondent %rites from Berlin that the French
ambassador has lately received a despatch desiring him to
tell the Berlin cabinet that the attitude of certain political
personages in the Southern Gelman States was calculated
to raise a suspicion that the stipulations of the Treaty of
Prague relative to the line of the Maine were about to be
infringed, and that the French government trusted that
Prussia would observe that treaty. Although the de-
spatch is couched in most courteous ternis it betrays an
►ttitude on the part of France which she has not hitherto
assumed.

The Gazette de France, in quoting the above,
Bays :

Who shall say whether the seed sow.' in this present
month of December wi,l produce palms or bayonets in
April or May ?

Very sad accounts are given of the health of 31.
de Lamartine, now at his chateau in Burgundy. He
sits all day long in an arm chair without saying a
word, and scarcely seems to recognise visitors who
come to see him. At meal times two servants
take him by the shoulders and carry rather than
support him into the dining-room, where he eats
with a ravenous appetite, but still remains silent.
His friends are extremely uneasy about him.
Lord Shaftesbury, at the head of a deputation
from the Bible Society and the Paris Conference
and Evangelisation Committee, waited on the Em-
peror at St. Cloud, on Dec. 13, to present an ad-
dress of thanks to his Majesty for the facilities
which had been afforded during the period of the
Exhibition for the distribution of Bibles and tracts
and the erection of temporary places of evangelical
worship. His lordship took the opportunity of ,
presenting the Emperor with a handsomely bound
copy of a protestant Bible. His Majesty graciously
accepted the present, and stated that it was
a principle of his government to give pro-
tection to all religious bodies. The enuncia-
tion from the throne of this undoubted
doctrine of the French law and constitution is
not without importance at the present time,
when the catholic party is making convulsive
struggles for ascendancy. The Rev. J. Davis,
chaplain of the Salle Evangelique, and the Rev. E.
Forbes, chaplain of the English church in the Rue I
d'Aguesseau, who formed part of the deputation,
addressed short speeches of thanks to the Emperor.

Gustavo Dorf has just sold the immense picture
which occupied so large a space in the central salon of the
Annual Exhibition at Paris this year to an American ama-
teur for 2,200/. The subject, it will be remembered, is
gambling•tablo at Baden. Several of the celebrated ano-
nymu of the day set, it is said, for their portraits in this
picture, which is a life-like photograph of the scene daily
enacted at a German kursaal.

A rich old lady, 90 years of age, has just died at
Clifton, in Somersetabire, who for a long time past believed
that she never could sleep except In her carriage. She used,
therefore, to ride out in her carriage every afternoon with
the blinds drawn to take her daily rest. The carriage was
seen daily travelling at a snail's pace over Clifton Downs.

The take of sprats off the Hampshire coast last
week was the largest known for some years ; nearly 1,000
bushels were sold at Southampton for sixpence a bushel to
be converted into manure.

GREAT NORTHERN HORTITAL, CALSDOIRAN-ROAD,
N. Number of patient. for the week ending Deo. 14,
1,009, of which 293 were wew owe.