The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-11 00:00:00

DECREASE.

LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 11, 1867.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(rsom oua OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, TRUIPMAT EVENING.

There are symptoms that the " Eastern ques-
tion" must have been the leading topic at the last
ministerial council. Several of the evening papers
have leading articles upon it. Of course they do
not know much, and their observations are of
small moment, but they know generally that
something important is on the tapia about Turkey
and Greece. A telegram says that the Turkish
government is about to call out 150,000
men of the reserve in order to be ready
for a rising in the provinces bothering
on Greece. This is a curious commentary
on the assertion that the Cretan insurrection
is altogether suppressed. The Pattie, whose article
of the other day affirming broadly that the "main-
tenance of Ottoman domination in the archipelago"
must be maintained by an agreement between
France and England wu disavowed bythe Moniteur,
returns to the charge, patronised as it is by a
minister who is not the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
The Pattie argues that Greek Christians have now
no cause of complaint, that there is no longer
any conflict between the Crescent and the Cross,
but only one between western civilisation and
" Czarism." The Prease professes to believe that
a conference will be proposed either by Turkey or
Austria, and that a conference will shortly meet
—a conference which, pace the Presse I do not be-
lieve in, would certainly not confirm the domina-
tion of Turkey in the Archipelago.
The Libel te points out as important an opinion
expressed by the France, that the reason for the
pending reorganisation of the army is the anticipa-
tion of " eventualities of which the war in Ger-
many would be the point de depart." This is, 1
think, the first time that the prospect of a war to
avenge the too great success of M. de Bismarck in
carrying out the plans concerted at Biarritz has
been so distinctly foreshadowed by a French semi-
official paper.
M. Lecoudray, the employs of the lighthouse of
the Levant Island Penitentiary, who had no higher
social rank than that of a discharged sailor, is
gazetted in to-day's Moniteur a chevalier of the
Legion of Honour. This prompt honorary reward
for the courage he showed during the terrible
mutiny when the hearts of those who should have
stood in the breach failed them, is most com-
mendable. No dr,ubt M. Lecoudray will
be either pensioned for life or provided with
a place which will assure him a competence
to the end of his days. The public prosecutor's
speech in this affair did homage to the opinion
against capital punishment. He said, most truly,
that blacker and more inexcusable crime was never
heard of, but that he could not ask for a capital
verdict on account of the number of the guilty. It
would, he said, shock the manners and opinions of
the day to have a dozen people guillotined on one
scaffold. He was unable to select one, two, or
three as more guilty than many others, and there-
fore, after much reflection and painful doubt, he
had come to the conclusion that the number of the
guilty was practically a ground for mercy to ally
and he could not ask for a sentence of death in any
one case.

The Bourse recovered but very slightly from the
depression of the last two days.