The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-02 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(mow ova OWN CORIUMPONDENT.)
FRIDAY EVMINO.
. _

The authorised pen of M. Boniface gives a sketch
of the new press bill as finally settled by the Em-
peror in the Council of State yesterday. It differsin
only two material particulars from the statement
of the Frowe, which I lately sent you. One of
these differences is for the better, the other fur the
worse. The stamp duty, instead of remaining at
6 centimes, is to be reduced to 4. But, on the
other band, newspapers, instead of being liable
to suppression only for crimes, may be
suspended and suppressed by the correctional
tribunals at their discretion, after two misde-
meanours committed in the course of two years.
This is severe, but still far better than the present
arbitrary system. The correctional tribunals
almost always convict when called upon by
government to do so, but they seldom inflict any-
thing like the maximum punishment, and the
pressure of public opinion may be safely relied
upon to prevent them from assuming the re-
sponsibility of confiscating such a large property
as a journal for slight and trivial causes.
M. Emile 011ivier, who still addresses M. Emile
de (lirardin as his " dear friend," writes the fol-
ios it:g letter to the Libcrti in justification of his
conduct:

Paris, Feb. 28.

•
Yon say I was wrong not to become a minister and to
make myself ministeriaL• Allow me not to consider the
question whether I was right or wrong not to be-
come a minister ; but let me also complain without
rancour that you should call me ministerial. Nothing
can be more simple than what passed in the last
sitting of the Corps Legislatif. B. Rouher hav-
ing reproduced the ideas which I had developed last
year against him, and having even added a word of ad-
miration for that group of " five" which I shall for ever
be proud of having belonged to, I thought it but loyal to
sapiens an adhesion wl'ich it was all the easier for me to
snake that I did it without arri< re penile of any kind. As
to reserves, I had none to make ; they were implicitly
contained in my words, and in my antecedents still
more than in my words. If the laws on the
press and the right of public meeting shall be
conformable to my hopes, my adhesion will be-
come definitive. If they should be as draconian as
the journals have said, I skill cede to no one the privilege
of opposing them. But should I adhere definitively, I
shall not, therefore, become ministerial. Rightly or
wrongly, the word means one who systematically approves
all the government does. Now, I shall never deviate from
the principle which forms the honourable engagement be-
tween me and my constituency—neither systematic lq-
probation nor systematic hostility. Yours,

EMILE OLLIVIr.R.

The only notice which M. de Girardin takes
to-night of his " dear friend's" letter is that it re-
dounds to his honour, because it shows that had
he been a minister of January 10 he would
have listened patiently to the " most disagreeable
truths."

That on another occasion ho will pick to pieces
the very lainecase made by the letter I do not doubt.
A cashier in the immense shop called the Maga-
sins du Louvre, was convicted yesterday by the
assize court of the Seine of extensive embezzle-
ments. The prisoner, a young man named Pig-
nolet, aged 24, born at Evreux, in Normandy,
had a salary—considered a handsome one for
his age and position—of just 1121. a year.
With these ostensible means of subsistence he
dressed like an exquisite, appeared on Sundays
and in the long summer evenings in carriages in
the Bois de Boulogne, cut a great figure among the
demi-monle, and went to races, where he betted,
if I may be excused so bad a pun, with his betters.
But for his extravagant way of living his frauds
might perhaps have never been discovered, for the
Magnetite du Louvre turn over 13 millions of
francs a year, and in such an enormous sum
his embezzlements, though large, were but as
a flea-bite, and he effected them with great
skill and caution. But it coming to the
knowledge of some of the managers that he
was spending money quite out of proportion
to his apparent means, they spoke to hint on the
subject. Ho said he often received money from
his relations, and had lately inherited a consider-
able sum. Notwithstanding this answer, it was
thought necessary to keep a close watch upon him,
and it was very soon found that he made false
entries in the books, and sometimes contrived to
receive money without entering it at all. He was
arrested. The management, on the closest inves-
tigation, could only find out frauds to the extent of
40,000 fr. ; but he subsequently confessed that lie
had embezzled as much as from 70,000 fr. to
80,000 fr. Among the papers seized in his lodgings
was a list almost as long as Leporello.' catalogue in
" Don Juan " of the different ladies he had known,
the periods with which ho had been acquainted
with them respectively, and tho sums of money lie
had spent on each. The Droit publishes for the
information of the curious in such matters not
only the names but the addresses of all these
ladies. M. Lachaud defended the prisoner, and
succeeded in persuading the jury to convict him
only of embezzlement, and not of forgery. He
was sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

• M. E. de Girardin never mid this. Whet be said
was, that M. Emile 011ivier was expected to make a
diocvegn stinistre—a very different thing.

The ball at the Tuileries on Tuesday evening
WIN unusually brilliant, about 4,000 persons being present.
The Emperor and Empress entered the rooms at 10. The
Empress wax attired in white satin trimmed with roses.
the leaves sparkling with brilliants. The Princess Clotilde
wore a robs of white muslin.

The Cologne Gazette states that in an election for
a deputy to the parliament of Northern Germany for that
city, M. fiasco, a catholic priest of Frankforton•the-
Maine, has just been returned, having ob ained 8,379
votes to 8,106 polled for his opponent, M. Ludolph Camp-
hausen, candidate of the old Prank= liberal party.