The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-11 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(nom ova owl oomaromarr.)
PARIS, St 2“).ty Evoimo.

The national gift of 400,000 fr. to M. de Lamar-
tine by no means meets with unanimous approba-
tion. Indeed, were it not for the hesitation to
bear hardly upon an old man of genius with many
amiable qualities, who, notwithstanding the enor-
mous teats of money inherited and acquired by the
successful pursuit of literature which have passed
through his hands, has never been able to keep his
private affairs straight, the largesse at the nation's
expense would meet with almost universal repro-
bation. The exposl des motifs of the bill cites
as precedents the names of envier, Jourdan,
Darnremont, Jussion, Daumenil, Champollion,
Combes, Vicat, Duperrd,Eugene Burnouf, Bosquet,
and Philippe de Girard. But the cases invoked
were very different. In some the illustrious per-
sonages mentioned received very inadequate in-
demnities for discoveries made over without re-
serve to the public, and by which they might, had
they kept them to themselves, have realised large
fortunes. In other instances small pensions were
granted to the mother, widow, children, or grand-
I children of the persons thought worthy of national
pecuniary reward. But it is very generally felt
that M. do Lamartine has no greater claim upon
the nation than the other members of the pro-
visional government, who have ever since lived
well by honest industry, or poorly in honourable
poverty, without ever obtruding their private
affairs upon public notice. M. de Lamartine
has had two or three lotteries, thanks to a privilege
conceded to him by government, to raise money in
I that very objectionable way. His friends have
fox years been canvassed to subscribe and pay
in advance for books yet to be written which
they did not want. All the funds raised in this
undignified way have failed to fill up the ever-
deepening gulf of his debts, and it is most unlikely
I that the (nearly) half million of francs which the
Emperor now wishes to have the credit of giving,
and which the State must pay, will even keep the
recipient out of difficulties for the rest of his life.
A statement repeated by several journals that
the Luxor Obelisk was about to be removed to the
Place Trocadero, is positively denied in a eommu-
niqui from the Prefect of the Seine.
The Lenten sermons in the Tuileries chapel will
be preached this year by Abbe Bauer, and the sub-
ject of the series is said to be, " The object of
human life "—certainly an interesting theme.
The Marquis de Hallay-Coetquen died last night,
a few hours after a sudden attack of apoplexy. He
was the most famous referee in France on affairs of
honour. In France he might be said to constitute
a court of honour in his own person ; for such was
the weight of his opinion in the highest society
that his judgments were generally accepted as
binding decrees, and he prevented a very many
duels.

Verdi's Don Carlos, the production of which at
the Grand Opera has long been eagerly looked for,
is in the billikfor to-morrow night. Mesdames Sass
and Gueymard and M.M. Obin, Faure, Morbre,
and David are cast for the principal parts.

PARIS, SATURDAY SWUNG.

The Correctional Tribunal, Mr. President Deles-
vaux presiding, yesterday tried M. Paul de Cas-
sagnac and his seconds, for fighting a duel with M.
de Rochefort, a brother journalist, and wounding
him. After some very complimentary speeches
from the bench, and from Advocate-General Lepel-
lotier, to the hope of the house of Cassagnac (whose
father is editor of the Pays, and a staunch govern-
ment deputy), ho was found guilty, and sentenced
to pay a fine of 4/., while the seconds were con-
demned in something loss.
Under these circumstances, it was hardly worth
while to insert in the papers a paragraph stating
that Minister Duruy, whose son has also been
fighting a duel, " would not" save him from the
strong arm of the law. The question has been
very emphatically asked whether, under the Impe-
rial constitution, a Minister " can" exempt his
son from the law's operation 1 purity junior may
clearly be given up to justice by his Brutus father
without having much to fear.
The next case called on was of a far different com-
plexion. It was a prosecution for a religious libel
against two young men, MM. Eudes and Regnard,
who have no friends in high places, and are editors
of a journal called the Libre Pool. They wrote
against Louis Veuillot, and presumed to say—cer-
tainly no strange opinion in these days—that the
Pope's throne was rotten, and that from it arose fetid
emanations which created around it desolation and
solitude. They also said that catholicism reigned
only by favour of the darkness of its own creation,
and that it must shortly disappear before the dawn
of a new civilization. For the utterance of
these heinous opinions, which Mr. President Doles-
vaux characterised as an impious compilation of
the now forgotten and despised doctrines of the
philosophers, great and small, of the last century,
the defendants were sentenced to three months'
imprisonment ! M. de Girardin has over and over
again expressed similar sentiments in his journal
without being prosecuted; but then be consorts with
the highest in the land, lives in a palace, and gives
grand banquets to princes and ambassadors. The
judges who as a matter of form sentenced him to a
tine and not imprisonment,would be only too proud
to receive a nod from him in a private salon. On
the evening after his condemnation M. de Girardin
being at the Th6atre Francais was approached by
two judges of the superior courts, who offered to
shake hands. He said, " Oh, no, you must not
speak to me ' • I am a brebis galsnse."
The First Chamber of the Imperial Court, pre-
sided over by M. Dovienne, gave its decision yes-
terday in the affair of the heirs of the Duke de
Gramont-Caderousse v. Dr. D6clat. The court
confirmed the judgment of the Tribunal of First
Instance • consequently the will for the advantage
of Dr. Dialat remains annulled. The Judge-Ad-
vocate, M. Oscar de Vall6e, while recommerding
the judgment above-mentioned, on the ground
that Dr. INclat had certainly attended the duke
professionally in his last illness, and that
the law peremptorily annulled a legacy left to
a medical man under those circumstances, said
there was nothing in the case derogatory to the
chsracterof Dr. D6clat ; that he had not in any way
used undue influence, and that it was the deliberate
wish of the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse to leave
the bulk of his fortune to Dr. Wel:it, not as his
physician, but as his dearest and best friend. M.
Oscar de Vallee would take upon himself to offer a

suggestion which he had no authority to make, and
which, of course, might not be acted upon—namely,
that it would be just proper and graceful that the
rich and noble family who inherited the Duke de
Gramont-Caderousse's wealth, should appease the
manes of the testator by settling some such sum as
100,000 f. upon the young daughter of Dr. D6clat.
" Are we dreaming ?" is the heading of an article
in M. deGirardin's paper this evening,which says :
We shall wait till the bills on primary instruction
and the abolition of imprisonment for debt have been
voted, before we examine thoroughly the bill presented
with the object of subjecting the entire French nation to
military discipline, and under one pretext or another
forcing all Frenchmen, twenty years of age, to serve in the
army. Meanwhile we earnestly recommend our readers to
read and re-read the bill on army organisation, presented
to the Corps Leglalatif. We say read and re-read, because
after having re-read the bill ourselves, we ask if we are
dreaming We doubt whether we are living in 1867—in
the age of railways, electric telegraphs, and free trade.
We are not yet quite sure that we are awake!
There is a well-accredited rumour that the Grand
Duke of Baden has made up his mind to break up
the South German Confederation, recommended
by France after the battle of &Wows, but in the
vitality of which nobody believes, by resigning his
amen in favour of Prussia.

It is understood that the Bureaux of the Corps
Legislatif, of course acting under orders given by
government, in pursuance of a promise, have con-
sented to M. Thiers' interpellations on foreign
affairs. The debate is expected to begin on Thurs-
day next. Italy and Germany will suffice for the
debate ; Mexico is to conic on another time.
The statement in some of yesterday's evening
papers that Lemaire, before his execution. confessed
and received the sacrament, was not correct. He
listened with politeness to what the prison chaplain
said to him ; but told him with great coolness that
whilehe,a man about to leave this world, thanked a
brother man who came to offer him consolation, he
could only give him a fraternal embrace, and must
refuse to accept his professional offices. As many
as 10,000 people assembled to witness the execu-
tion at the early hour of 0 o'clock, although the
morning was one of the coldest of this second
bitter winter.

The Bourse was generally firm. The great fea-
ture was a rise of 25c. in Italian, which, since M.
Riassoli's dissolution of parliament, had been de-
pressed. Rente rose 15c. for cash and Tic. for
account, closing at 70f. 10c. and 70f. sc. Mo-
bilier rose Of. 75c., and Credit Foncier sf.

ROME.

(raw( ous spacial. CORILZSPONDINT.)
ROME, Mises 5.

Under the heading of " Bugie a Bugiarde " (lies
aad fabrications), the Osservatore Romano, which is
on the whole a favourable specimen of clerical and
reactionary journalism, has been publishing,
at intervals throughout the winter, extracts from
the Roman correspondence of the Italianissimi, or
moat advanced revolutionary newspapers, which
are so widely circulated throughout the kingdom of
Italy. Now, from my own experience of the prin-
ciples, or rather absence of principles, on which
such journals as the *cob) and Sole of Milan—the
two most frequently quoted by the Ossereatore
Ronutno—are conducted, I am perfectly aware that
they do not for a moment aim at publishing the
truth. At the same time I should be loth to apply
so hard a term as a " lie " to any statement put
fdfth, either in writing or by word of mouth, by the
average Italian. For the inhabitants of this
sunny peninsula, just as they love to
wear colours, as bright as those in which
Nature dresses the landscape about them,
love also to put a good deal of colour into their
talk and writing. The result is an exceedingly
picturesque, but generally baseless, manner of die.
thin and expression. Now, as the 50,000 readers
of the Seoul°, for instance, do not ask for the truth,
but only require something spicy for the half-
penny at which that journal is sold, it would
surely be most unreasonable of its Roman corre-
spondent (who, after all, is most likely an abstrac-
tion) to supply an article for which there is no
demand. If it is safe to walk abroad outside the
gates of the Eternal City—if you can go more than
a dozen steps after dark without meeting armed
patrols—if the " foreign hireling," or, as he is
variously styled, the " hated Zouave," is not per-
petually to be seen trampling Roman liberties
under foot, or insulting Roman and foreign ladies—
if the monasteries and convents are not filled with
brigands in disguise—why, more is the pity. For
the purpose of the Roman correspondents of the
Italian journals these things ought to be, and
therefore they are.

What amount of foundation there may be for the
alarming statements contained in a letter from
Rome which appeared in a recent number of the
Pall Mall Gaulle, I will not presume to give an
opinion ; but I may add, that from that letter most
of the English sojourners here received their first
positive intimation of the desperate risk they are
running in remaining a day longer in this city,
which it appears is so soon to be devoted to
anarchy. For all most of us know to the contrary,
a revolution may of course break out at any mo-
ment ; but so we have been taught to believe that
it might any time during the last three months. One
has been told over and over again that only the slen-
derest occasion was needed to render an outbreak
certain ; but bombs have exploded in public places,
a Zouave has been assassinated, and at least one
other stabbed, and still the Roman people has
shown no sign of rising. And now that even Gari-
baldi has given it as his deliberate opinion that
"vie pacificho a legati " (to quote words used by
him at Bologna the other day) are to be preferred
to any other as the means of bringing about the
freedom of Rome, surely an immediate revolution
is highly improbable.
That the Roman National Committee has been, and
continues to be, strongly adverse to any premature
rising, is quite certain. But, then, the National
Committee only represents the more moderate
section of Roman liberals, and is distrusted by
those more advanced because of its admitted
intimate alliance with, and obedience to the orders
of, the Italian government.
The more advanced liberals again are split up
into two sections—the Mazzinians and independent
liberals—who are in favour of a constitutional
monarchy, and have only this much in common
with the Mazzinians, that they are both in favour
of immediate action.
Of Mazzinians in Rome the number is said to
be very small, and I was astonished to hear an
independent and one of the most respected liberals
here—a man of very advanced opinions—declare
the other day, that he did not consider that you
could find an honest man among the followers of
Mazzini.

As for the independent liberals, 1 do not believe
them to be sufficiently organized or numerous to
overbalance the influence of the National Committee,
which is doing its utmost to keep things quiet for
the present.