The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-07 00:00:00

PORTUGAL.

LISBON, 83“. 6.

A hoisting and graving dock for repairing ships
his been Lunched in the Tagus to-day. The
King and the Court assisted at the ceremony.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(Taos ors owl' 001

PARIS, 81711MaT BVILIFING.

In the weekly Tribune M. Eugene Pelletal' re-
plies to the letter addressed to him a few days ago
by Prefect Paatourenn. He gives the fullest credit
to the Prefect'. alibi, but observes that it is irrele-
vant as far as the Tribune is concerned. M. Pelle-
t= never affirmed that M. Pastoureau personally
had shot the " insurgent" Martin Bidaure twioe
over—an insurgent guilty of rising in 1851 against
the constitution of 1852. But what he did say
was that in any case M. Pastoureau was very
wrong in prosecuting the Figero for defa-
mation, because the act which he now shrinks from
with holy horror was certainly performed by one
of his colleagues—if not General Levaillant,
as he almost suggests, then by somebody else.
And, moreover, the act, so far from being
one to be ashamed of by any agent of the coup
d'etat, was altogether in accordance with the spirit
of the time and the instructions M. Pastoureau's
superior, M. de Moray, which were in substance :
—" Above all, gentlemen, ne quarter ; shoot every
man you take." M. Pelletan mentions the name of
another Prefect, who, by his own confession re-
corded in the Monifeur, shot three prisoners, and
wanted to shoot six more, but could not get the
troops to do the latter job. The prosecution of
the Figaro for a mistaken allusion to M. Pas-
toureau was obviously an indirect attack upon his
colleagues, and consequently most indiscreet.
M. Pelletan follows up this article by a cita-
tion from M. Tenot's recent history of the
coup d eta which he recommends to the perusal
of General Levaillant wherever he may be enjoy-
ing his green old age. The page in question states
that when a column of troops ordered to put down
the insurgents in the Var reached Salernes, there
were eighty prisoners chained in the rear. At
Salerno° the officer in command resolved to exe-
cute a prisoner, a weaver, named Giraud, and also
another man from Vernon, called Anthoine
N—, who seems to have been selected for
death for no better reason than that he waa acci-
dentally coupled with Giraud. The column
marched on towards Lorgues, leaving those two
prisoners behind at the mayoralty. Shortly after-
wards they were brought out into the high road
near the Saint Clair chapel. A gendarme belong-
ing to the Luc brigade had received orders to
shoot them both with his own hand. This gen-
darme knew Giraud intimately. He came up to
him pistol in hand, and said, " Giraud, you will
forgive what I am obliged to do but lam a
soldier, and must obey orders." Giraud replied,
" I do forgive you ; but mak haste, and let me
not suffer." They exchanged a few more words,
and even kissed each other. The gendarme then
put the muzzle of the pistol to Girand's ear. and
pulled the trigger. Girau.l fell. A seeoul
later his companion. Antoine N--. was shot.
and fal also. The gcmlarme and the anal
under bit order., then got on hor:eback and
gallopped after the column. It turned
. . .

neither. of the men left for dead was mortally
injured. Giraud, who was wounded in the back
of the mek, had strength enough to get back ou
foot to Luc, where his wife secretly nur-ed
while publicly she went into mourning, and said
masses for his soul. As soon as he recovered he
took refuge in Piedmont, and the part which he
took in the insurrection was so insignificant that
at the end of a year he came back without ques-
tion under an amnesty. Antoine N— also re-
covered, but was stone deaf for the rest of his life.
and he died some year, ago. Liiraud is mow a
baker at Arcs. and it is from his lips that the his-
torian learned the above particulars.
M. Tenot goes on to recount the execution of
four other men near Draguignan, of whom one.
a lad of 17, named Gayol, was shot by mistake.
Retrospective anecdotes of this kind, which lei
years were left almost exclusively to Mr. King-
lake, are now not only eagerly read in Franco,
but there is a disposition to sift them thoroughly
and hunt out the evidence upon which they
depend. M. Tenet's book is in great demand.
M. Claretie, the author of the paragraph in the
Figaro. which was prosecuted by M. Pastourcau.
writes to M. Pelletan that he shall shortly be able
to inform the public who was the somebody in
authority, the On of M. Tenot, who shot M.
BidauK.

Prince Napol.' 9 unexpectedly pa sow('

through Paris on his way to Priligins. Ho denied
to some of his friends last Friday that he had any
mission whatever to the Hanseatic towns, whither
he says he went to escape from foul weather. The
Princess eh/tilde and her children are staying in
the Pyrenees. The ,not on the Boulevards is that
her imperial highness has only too great cause to
give her husband the title of Prince //e'en ,sort
(Consort;—the prince who is always being sent
abroad.

M. Henry Rochefort is proseeuted at Brab.utt,
on the requisition of the French Minister. fur
" insulting a foreign sovereign.- The Luiiteriu
did not appeal' in Paris yesterday, as no prints,'
c,ouhl be found to brave a certain prosecution.

Tun WIUTMGB OF NAPOLEON 111. mount's=
lbw.—Theear lnePpernien.e B.lge publishes the fol-
lowing letter from IL Henri Rochefort :—" I had pre-
pared for circulation in Paris on Saturday, Sept 5, a
number of the lonterne, wholly and solely composed from
the first to the last line of extracts from the political
weeks of Prince Louis Napoleon, now Napoleon 111.
The number appeared so revolutionary to the many
printers whom I Deka) to print it, that not one of them
would dare to run the risk of doing w. Thu fifteenth
number will, the:elute, like the fourteenth be publiahel
abroad."

801 l DAT MAIL.— AI.EXANDItIA. SEr v. 6. —The
Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamships Ripon:ma
Pungidore left at 9 a.m. to-day. The former may be
.•:-
peeled at Marseillee on the 12th and the Litter :It
about the 19th inst.
OUTWAIIII MAILS iit.22No _'S-tit At'iit'sr.—.
S -11ie 14.111.14 i, for I'alept to, :rill the
Curti/air, fou Bombay, at 7 p.m. 1.--1 o:%, rh• :ring oft'
all cargo.

INDIA AND CHIN% NIO .11-Nlltl I N
MAIT..— lIINNAt.TAS SETT. 6. - The N)anza leave.. at .1
p.m. to-day. All well. She may he expected at South-
ampton on the 11th inst.