The Express.
London, England, 1867-09-30 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(7110 X MR ORS

PARIS, SUNDAY EVENING.

Count de Keratry's new article on the fall of
Maximilian (to appear in to-morrow's number of
the Revue Contempuraine) covers the period between
General Caatelnau's arrival in Mexico city on Oct.
21, 1866, and the hot disputes which occurred in
the early part of January, 1867, between Maxi-
milian's government and the French authorities
relative to the strict enforcement by the latter of
their claim to sequestrate the Mexican customs
duties under the convention of July 30, 1866.
An ably drawn petition to the Emperor from the
7th and 15th arrondissements of Paris (being those
adjoining the Champs de Mars) is now in course of
signature, praying that the threat of the imperial
commission to destroy the Exhibition Palace and
the wondrous park in which it stands, in November
next, may not be carried into effect. The peti-
tioners allege that to restore the Champs de Mars
to its primitive state—namely, that of a dusty
desert in slimmer and a muddy quagmire in winter
—would be to ruin the neighbourhood. Mili-
tary exercises and cavalry charges kicking up
clouds of dust will prevent the proprie-
tors of the adjoining ground from building
habitations, and will destroy the prospects of what
now promises to be one of the best quarters of
Paris. The petition affirms that plenty of eligible
drilling ground may be had elsewhere, and dwells
upon the fact that the preservation of the pro-
perty now menaced with wanton destruction would
be far less costly than any other contemplated
improvement of Paris.

The Journal lUurtre publishes a striking portrait
of Consul Cameron, engraved from a sketch made
at Cairo in 1861, by aM. de Hem. The artist or
amateur, who made Mr. Cameron's personal
acquaintance on that occasion, describes him as a
remarkably fine, powerful man, with a thick,
flowing beard, and rather a Calmuck style of
countenance, and he has so depicted him.
M. de Hem tells a story of Mr. :ameron, which he
would scarcely have had the bad taste to invent
under the circumstances, and which, assuming it
to be true, is curious. One evening, after dinner,
they were sitting smoking together in Cairo, when
Mr. Cameron's servant entered the room. Ou a
sign from his master the man took off his livery
coat, waistcoat, and trowsers, and appeared in the
complete costume of a Drury-lane down, with a
red tuft, white collar, baggy breeches, &c. He at
once sat down upon the floor and went through a
number of extraordinary " comic oontoraions,"
going through, I suppose the movement of eating
" hot codling." Then he got up and quietly put
on his livery over the clown's dress, which he
always wore by way of under clothing. A
few days later the domestic clown favoured
Mr. Cameron's friends with a spectacle
far more comic. He got four geese (descendants, I
suppose, of Rossini's Goose of Cairo), put a kind of
harness upon their legs, and bridles in their
mouths, and took them down to the Nile. When
there he stripped off his livery, and producing from
his pocket an indiarubber basin, which he blew
out to a size just large enough to hold himself in
his clown's costume, he harnessed the geese to it,
and made them swim across the Nils with him, to
the great astonishment of the Arabs. M. de Hem
suggests that Consul Cameron counted a good deal
upon this servant for the success of his mission
to Abyssinia, thinking that his tricks would
make a great impression upon the natives.
Before leaving Cairo for his perilous post the consul
hired a serpent charmer, a sabre swallower, and
other conjurors. The master, "vigorous, intelligent,
and full of animal spirits," was the very man M.
de Hem thinks to be as jolly as possible during his
lung and terrible captivity, but he doubts the forti_
tude of the poor clown, who was a miserable looking
fellow.

The Paris correspondent of the Post says that
since 1848 the Jesuits have numerically very much in-
creased in France, sod the priests have now much more
influence over the people, or rather what is called the edu-
cated classes. The s:reets of Paris and the environs of
the city show that a change has taken place in the reli.
gious sentiment of the people. " There was a time when
you seldom met with priests in a oonspicnous robe, and
never with the members of monastic orders. They
may now be met with Teonstantly on the Boule-
vards, in the railways, and in society—Capucines, Jesuits
of miens degree., priests with three-cornered hats,
seek as are warn at Rome, and oonspicaously robed. Eccle-
siastics are not timid, reserved, ►nd unobtrusive, as they
were before the foundation of the empire. They now
thread society • :th the confidence of Austrian or Spanish
churchmen. The churches are more attended than of old,
and Rome has once more crept into the schools of France.
Now, all tbis means that the church isgaining more worldly
and political influence, and can surely effect the election of
the elected of the people, as well as deputies. This gives
the papacy strength and influence in France, and just she
power Rome covets."

_
The American Generals Hooker and M'Clellan
ire now in Paria.

The birth of an heir to the Itfuckross estates,
Killarney, hu been celebrated with untumal festivities, in
which the tenantry on the extensive estates of Herbert
sad the gentry of the neighbourhood shared. Upwards of
400 at down to dinner on Thursday sussing.
Amongst the cargoes of the Allemannia which
arrived at Cowes last weak from New Irish were &V eases
of sewing machines.