The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-04 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY MIMI% JUNE 4, /066.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(Ism ova owx ow

PARIS, St IMAT Eventna.
The sombre prospects of the conference, noticed
yesterday, are darker still to-day. Prince Glert-
ohakoffs gout is so much worse that he is not only
unable to leave St. Petersburg by June 10, but it is
doubted whether he will come at all. The Munich
telegraph announces that. M. de Pfordten, who has
been chosen plenipotentiary to represent the Ger-
i reanie Diet in the conference, is to start for Paris
on Wednesday next, but Senator Gueronniere's
journal La Prance thinks his departure must
" altogether depend upon the result of the prelimi-
nary negotiations relative to the eventual meeting
of the conference." My own opinion at this
moment is that the conference will not meet after
all. The government journal the Pays is in-
structed to write with great severity against
Austria, and to characterise the step it took on
June 1 of submitting the Schleswig-Holstein ques-
tion to the Federal Diet as a " diplomatic coup
or• Stat." At the same time we know that this act
is regarded in Berlin as tantamount to $ declara-
tion of war, because it ignores the treaty of Gas-
tein which left the Duchies entirely at the mercy
Of Prussia and Austria as conquered countries, and
carefully excluded the Diet from any voice in the
matter. The troops of Hanover and Saxony, which
were in the Duchies on the part of the Diet, were
compelled to evacuate them by a hostile demonstra-
tion on the part of Prussia, and until Prussia and
Austria quarrelled about the division of the prey
the Diet was fain to leave the settlement of the
Duchies entirely to the courts of Berlin and
Vienna. Now Prussia, instead of doing entirely as
she likes with the Duchies, is—if she tamely submit
to the last Austrian move—forced to submit to the
arbitration of a body which .is notoriously against
her, and prompted by her powerful rival. The
Pays, with an evident leaning towards Prussia,
hints that the latter power will send an army into
Holstein for the express purpose of preventing
the meeting of the " states" which Austria has
convoked there. "In this," says the Pays, " there
lies serious danger of a serious conflict which may
precipitate events. Is that what the cabinet of
Vienna wants ? Perhaps."

The France, doubtless inspired by notes from the
Foreign-office identical with those which must have
been before the writer in the Pays, uses the very
same phrase, "precipitate events"—meaning war.
At the little irregular Bourse on the Boulevard
to-day Rents was done at 631 r. 40c., being 50c.
lower than the closing official quotation of yester-
day.

ITALY.

(11011 A COZAZIPONDENT.)
RIMINI, MAY 28.

Never, I suppose, since railways were invented,
did trains present so extraordinary a spectacle as
they do at this moment on most of the lines in
Northern Italy. Take up your position at what
station you please, and you will not have to wait
long before a Garibaldini " special" draws up with
its boisterous living freight. Inside and out, from
one end of the train to the other, the carriages,
first, second, and third class alike, literally swarm
with patriotic dust-begrimed lads, who, if they are
only half as careless of their lives on the field of
battle as they are in the face of the imminent
danger of being run over by the train, about which
they climb and play as if it was the most harmless
thing in the world, will one day do infinite credit
to their country. As the monster engines roll
slowly up to the station snorting out their black
I smoke which half conceals the motley bacchanalian
crew on board (to borrow an American expression)
and through which a confused din of human voices
Makes itself heard, you might fancy that you
were transported to the shores of the Ganges, and
were witnessing the procession of some terrible
Juggernaut's car, before which the faithful
were about to prostrate themselves. On the
roof of the foremost carriage, with their legs
dangling over the engine, are seated the leaders of
the band, bearing huge tri-coloured flags, and from
this precarious position, whenever they approach a
station, or meet with another train, give the signal
for the furious hurrahings and shootings of
" Evviva Garibaldi," which are, in these exciting
times, everywhere dinned into one's ears.
The first thing that strikes you about these
Garibaldini trains—after you have ceased wonder-
ing at their crowded and motley appearance—ia
that they all have their tails turned towards the
enemy, and that the enthusiasm seems to increase
rather than otherwise as the distance from the
Venetian frontier increases. In sending the great
mass of the volunteers, who are of the rawest pos-
sible material, off southwards, to learn something
of their military duties and discipline before they
are brought face to face with the enemy, the go-
vernment is no doubt acting very wisely. One
would, however, have expected that such a pro-
ceeding would have had the effect of damping
the enthusiasm of the volunteers, in the same
manneras a young deer-stalker, who, having sighted
deer, is all eagerness to go straight at them, is
inclined to go home in disgust, when he is told by
the experienced stalker, to whose charge he is
entrusted, to turn his back on the deer, and walk
several miles in the opposite direction, for fear the
deer should catch sight of him, or get his wind.
In the short period, during which the lists have
been open, not far short of a hundred thousand
volunteers have enrolled themselves, and are now
being trained to serve by the side of the regular
army. When it is borne in mind that this volun-
teer movement ham gone on parallel with the

recruitment—and probably the most sweeping
recruitment which ever was known in the Italian
peninsula—it must be admitted that the fact speaks
volumes for the patriotism of the nation at large,
which has thereby given the best proof of the
sacrifices it is willing to undergo for so sacred an
object as the deliverance of Rome and Venetia.
Some days since, in consequence of the overwhelm-
ing number of volunteers who continued to pour in
from all parts, the government was compelled to
issue a notice, that the lists would be closed for
the present on Saturday last, May 26, and that
after that day, no more volunteers could be
enrolled. From every corner of the Mediterranean
where Italians are settled and Italian is spoken,
volunteers have flocked in to serve under the
national standard, and Egypt, Dalmatia,
and Istria vie with the peninsula in send-
ing their contingents. So great and widely
extended is the national enthusiasm, that it has
even infected the Papal Dragoons, some fifty of
whom presented themselves a few days back to the

Italian authorities at Ancona, having eliablied,
fully equipped, across the frontier. It is matiarao-
toy to think that these gallant fellows will now in
all probability soon have an opportunity of biting
the lives to some more useful ptirpose thaiii in
breaking their necks in falling on the sliprry
stoop in the execution of their dangerous duty of

clearing the Corso of its carnival crowd. on mace
aftatnoons. By an unfortunate mishap the leader
of the band—a colonel in the Papal army—got
separated from his comrades, and, being captetred
by the authorities, was taken back to Rome, where
he is to be tried by court-martial.
Rimini is not a lively place, and in the midst of
so much general liveliness elsewhere you feel
devoutly thankful for it. To judge from the en-

tries in the strangers' book at thiii hotel, of which

theie are but three in the course of the past twelve
months, Rimini is singularly unfrequented by

visitors. Formerly, before the existence of 'rail-
ways, it appears to have been otherwise, and Ri-
mini in general, and " 11 Albergo dei Tre Re"
in particular, was a favourite stopping place
for "Intlords" posting from Rome, lq Tisy. of An-
cona, or Perugia, to Ravenna and Vence. In these

days mi-lordsl-liice the common herd—don't stop
anywhere en route, but go straight through to their

destinations, which is a bad look-out for interme-
dike places like Rimini. About the inn and the
landlord there is an interesting fossil-kind of
respectability, for which, as for things soon about
to pass away for ever, every right-minded indivi-
dual must feel a anbdasd and undefined regard.
Were there no other attraction at Rimini, it were
surely worth the while of the passing traveller to
stay a night at the place to make the acquaintance
of a landlord who, while he keeps his house open at
a ruinous expense, in the hope of the return of the
good old times when the ponderous travelling
coaches of mi-lords shall again roll up to his door-
way, actually has the rare pleasure of welcoming a
guest but once in four months, and treats that
guest as if he were several lords rolled into one.
One of the latest noblemen whose name figures in
the books of the hotel is a certain Baron Renfrew—
a disguise which did not avail to conceal from the
landlord the real quality of his guest, who was
none other than the heir to the British throne.
But if Rimini is in itself neither lively nor
particularly interesting, it enjoys the advantage of
being more advantageously situated than any other
point for making an excursion to one of the most
interesting places in Italy—the little republic of
San Marino. Of the physical position of that little
state, which has maintained its independence for
upwards of fifteen centuries, it is hardly too much
to say, that for picturesque grandeur it is probably
unequalled in Europe. As seen from the Adriatic,
over which it commands a view extending in clear
weather to the opposite coast of Dalmatia, or as
viewed by one who approaches it across the plains
of Lombardy, which are hardly less flat than the
sea, the effect is incomparably grand. Although
little more than 2,500 feet above the sea level,
the serrated ridge, on the highest summit of
which the republic of San Marino is perched,
rises in its last spring so sheer up from its pe-
destal that were the height as great as
that of the Matterhorn, the effect could hardly
be grander. To find a walled and castellated town,
with its church, its town-hall, court of justice,
public library, &c., on the top of a mountain,whose
summit is often hidden in the clouds, and which
would be quite inaccessible to any but a bold moun-
taineer, but for the road, which has been carried up
to it with great labour and expense, would I sus-
pect be as great a surprise to most persons as it was
to me. To all those who may be craving after a
new sensation, and especially to 'dash travellers, I
should distinctly recommend a visit to the republic
of San Marino.
Did San Marino happen to lie on any road fre-
quented by tourists, or to be visible from any one
of the great highways of Italy, along which the
ruck of travellers streams annually to Florence,
Rome, or Naples; the world must inevitably have
long since been inundated with countless sketches
of it, done in pen and pencil. But, lying as San
Marino does, in an out-of-the-way corner of Italy,
it has quite escaped notice, and is now so rarely
explored by foreigners of any nation, that my own
visit yesterday seemed to create no small excite-
ment.

While they were about it, the angels who trans-
ported the santa aura from Nazareth to Loretto,
might just as well have carried it a little further
on, to Monte Titano—the appropriate name which
was originally given to the mountain by the
natives, who were converted to Christianity by San
Marino in the fourth century. Then Monte
Titan would have become, as it deserved to be-
come, the great high place, to which all Italy
would have gone up to worship.
As it is, " Liberty " is enshrined there instead
of the Madonna, and the inhabitants of San Marino
would probably not be in a hurry to exchange god-
desses with their neighbours of Loretto. The man-
ner of living of the Sanmarinese is characterised
by the utmost simplicity. Only a copper currency
is recognised by the state, and twice every year the
people assembles before its chief magistrates
to claim redress of any grievances, or to lodge com-
plaints against any public officers. What was
formerly the castle has now been converted into a
prison, but on the occasion of my visit not a single
cell was tenanted, although the gaoler informed me
with a knowing look that he had good grounds for
expecting a prisoner on the following day.
One of the last persons confined in the airy prison
of San Marino was an octogenarian priest of the
appropriate name of " Righi." This ambitious
ecclesiastic, it appears, some time since, had
the audacity to publish's work denouncing the go-
vernment of San Marino. For this offence he was
committed to prison, and finally sentenced to five
years' banishnient from the territory of the republic.
Instead of residing on the summit of the mountains
the good priest has now taken up his abode in a
village a few miles distant from the foot of it, and
such is his attachment to San Marino— his birth-
place—that he declares his intention of returning
thither to end his days when the remaining two
years of his term of exile shall have expired.

Tea Lune BANKING COMPANY.—LZEDS, BAIT R-
DATNTGKr.—This evening Mr. Greenland, the late manager
of the Leeds Banking Company, was brought here by Super-
intendent Hunt, on the chirp of having falsified amounts
and magnified the dividends of the company. Greenland
was received with most unmistakeable signs of disapproba-
tion as soon as the train reached Wellington station.
Thome who had ggaathered on tke platform hooted him, but
he was ul y placed in a Gab sad taken to the Town-
halL —Scads t Goma&
ROYAL FIZI HO6I.ITAL, GILLT'B-ENN-110AD.
The number of patients relieved at this hospital during the
week ending June 2 was 3,309, of which 1,074 were new
cases.