The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-19 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, JAN. 18.

Several evening journals mention and attach
credence to a rumour of approaching modifications
in the governmental organization. The Ministers
would, in future, be allowed to defend personally
before the Chambers the measures connected with
their respective departments ; the address in reply
to the speech from the throne would be suppressed ;
the right of the Chambers to put questions to the
government would be restored ; and some changes
would be effected in the existing press regulations.
The Etesdard says that no change will take place
among the members of the cabinet.
The France, referring to the above rumours,
says :—" We believe these statements to be in the
main correct. Nothing, however, appears to have
yet been definitively resolved upon."
The same journal gives a denial to the news pub-
lished by the Temps that several great Powers are
urging the Porte to take the initiative in assembling
a conference relative to the Eastern question.

TER PARIS BOURSE.
PARIS, JAN. 18, 3.30 P.Y.
The Bourse ham been firm. Rental; closed at
69.40, or Sc. higher than yesterday.

THE WAR. IN THE BRAZILS.
MONTE VIDEO, Dm. 17.
The allied army and fleet continue inactive in
the Argentine Confederation.

The revolution which has broken out in the
province of Mendoza, against President Mitre, is
progressing.

FRANCE.

(mom oun own coanzaPonolia.)
PARIS. THUHIiDAY EVIILNG.
_ _

Snow fell heavily in Paris last night. In the
early morning there were two or three degrees of
frost, but it thawed in the day time, and the streets
are now sloppy and disagreeable. There must have
been a much larger fall northwards for no London
mails were in up to a late hour this afternoon. In
the south of France the snow has been phenomenal.
A notice issued by the Post-office states that com-
munication is completely cut off between Lyons
and Marseilles, and on all the branches of
the railway south of Lyons. An attempt
is making to send letters from Lyons to
Avignon by the Rhone, but the Meniteur
hints a doubt whether the bad weather may not
frustrate the execution of the intention to substi-
tute water for railway communication as the only
possible section of the line to the south of Lyons.
The high roads are of course, still more impracti-
cable than the railways. The Moniteur states that-
although it is hoped the line between Paris and
Marseilles may be clear by the 18th, orders have
been given for more caution, that the departure of
the packet with the Indian mail shall be delayed
till the arrival at Marseilles of the train
leaving Paris at 7.48 evening on the 18th. There must
be some mistake in this announcement, because the
train which takes both the English and French
Indian mails does not leave Paris till 11 a.m. onl
the 19th of every month.
A telegram from Hazebrouck, dated this day,
states that the snow has prevented the trains run-
ning between that town and Calais.
Imperial advocate Chevrier yesterday delivered'
his summing up in an important case, the hearing
of which has occupied the Tribunal of First In-
stance
for several days. The committee of the Uni-
venal Exhibition took it for granted that they had a
monopoly of the right of printing catalogues of the
Universal Exhibition, and they delegated the sup-
posed right for a large sum of money to M. Dentu,
the eminent publisher of the Palais Royal. Sub-
sequently MM. Lebigre-Duquesne announced by
advertisement their intention to publish a private
catalogue, with which would be incorporated a
great deal of information likely to interest visitors
to Paris. M. Dentu, finding an intention to in-
fringe upon his monopoly thus boldly announced,
took the matter up at first with • very high
hand indeed. He instituted • criminal pro-
secution against MM. Lebigre-Duquesne be-
fore the Tribunal of Correctional Police
for the novel offence of an anticipatory in-
fringement of his copyright, and seized in their
offices several lithographic designs intended to illus-
trate the forthcoming free catalogue. He was com-
pelled, however, upon better advice to abandon
the prosecution, which had not a legal leg to stand
upon, and two subsidiary questions in the now
pending cause are, Ist, whether Dentu is not liable
to damages for his criminal prosecution ; and 2nd,
whether his civil action for the same cause is
maintainable, when, without the consent of
the defendants to his nolte. prosequi, he has
not brought that prosecution to trial. The
main question now before the court is
whether the Imperial Commission, in the absence
of any statute thereunto empowering them, has a
right to prevent the public from compiling a
catalogue of the public Universal Exhibition now
about to be opened I In attempting to prove the
affirmative of this proposition, the Imperial advo-
I cate seems to me to have a very up-hill task. In
the absence of any express law, he relied upon pre-
cedents very wide of the mark. One of these was
a letter from Mr. Sandford, secretary to the
London Universal Exhibition of 1862, stating that
there was but one catalogue in London,
that the right of the committee to the " copyright "
of it, and to the exclusive sale " within the walls of
the Exhibition" was never contested, and that in
his opinion any attempt to infringe the tights of
the authorised edition would have been repressed
by a Court of Chancery injunction. This precedent
does not meet the present case. No doubt the
" copyright " of the official catalogue would have
been protected ; and no doubt the police of the
managers of the Exhibition had a right to regulate
sales within the building. But if any visitor chose
from memory or observation to publish a private
catalogue, I cannot believe there was any law to
prevent him. The Imperial advocate, while ear-
nestly hoping that the court would agree with him,

betrayed evident doubts lest the tendency in I
France to mistake decrees for laws, may not have I
misled the Committee's protlig4, M. Dentu. Judg-
ment to be given this day week.
M. Marc Fournier, the manager of the Porte St.
Martin, has announced to the surviving sister of
Mddle. Georges that he intends, out of respect to ,
the memory of that illustrious actress, to give an
annual performance for the benefit of her personal
representetive. He guarantees that this benefit
shall produce a minimum of 2,400 f., and undertakes
to pay an annuity to that amount in advance. As an ,
earnest he encloses a cheque for the first monthly
instalment of 200 f. This is an act of princely f
munificence on the part of a private individual.
1001. a year, so difficult—necessarily so difficult—
to be got as a literary pension from a royal fund
provided by parliament, is given here by a minor ,
theatre to an unheard-of sister of an actress who
left the stage a quarter of a century ago.
A hard nut to crack for those who think deco-
rations conferred by courts a teat of merit is, that
while M. Ingres, the illuatrious painter, had the '
respectable number of five, M. Paulin Limayrac,
the government writer in the Constitutketnet, has
twenty-ail. Hy the way, Imperial Advocate
Chewier lugged into his speech on the question of '
the Nadu catalogue a high-flown compliment to
M. laves, which is worth quoting as a specimen
du genre. He spoke of _Lex Schaffer, Paul Debi-
roche, and Eugbne Delacroix. as

Mastrions dead who within the last few hours have been
joined by one far more illustrious—that demi-god of con-
tempscary painting now gone back to the serene regions of
Olympas, from which to look M his works one might doubt
whethig he had ever descended.

Theist oxen for this year's procession of the
Band Oral are already selected ; there are three
of them, and the names of "Le Thug," "La
BellaDijonnaise," and " La Petite Preen," have
beenlastowed upon them.
Mister of War has just decided that in
fut very man in the army, in addition to the
ord. drill of Iles branch of the service to which
he , shall receive instruction in fencing.
uric was again bad. Rente fell lbc. for
cash, end 171,c. for account, closing at 69.30 and
69.33ir Mobilier fell 7.50, and Cridit Fonder Mr.
Italia/rose 20c.

04 correspondent at Boulogne, writing yester-
day, 4ays :—" Notwithstanding the great quantity
of snot that has fallen, the trains are running be-
tween this and Paris, but those from here to Calais
and faiDm Calais to Paris have been stopped. The
weatlihr in the Channel has also been very rough.
Two French fishing boats went ashore near the
eastern pier, and one man was lost."