The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-13 00:00:00

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(MOW OUR OWN_

I'ARIS, MoNDAT EvastNo.

A pamphlet has just been publishol on Official
Candidatures," by M. Dupont White. After exa-
mining the situation of the French empire under
the various aspects in which it presents itself to the
mind of the author, he comes to the conclusion
that the true interest of tho government consists
in abstaining from all intervention in the general
elections which will take place before long, in
order that it may be known what arc th 3
wishes of Franco, and that the government may
conform to those desires freely expressed. This
advice has been many times repeated by
men of greater weight in the estima-
tion of high personages than M. Dupont
White; but, whatever exception may be taken to
many parts of his brochure, ho winds up well, and
therein is sure of the support of the liberal press.
Freedom of election in France, however, is and
will probably long remain a dream. It makes a
good theme for an essay, and at present can come
to nothing mor.•. The free expression of public
opinion through the medium of universal suffrage
is locked upon as so utterly impracticable, so pal-
pable a thaw, and so intolerable a delusion, that
in some parts of France electors are
known to have agreed amongst themselves
not to vote at all, and I learn this morning
that at a meeting at Marseilles, held at the offices
of the newspaper Le Ikuple, it was considered
whether that journal should not agitate the ques-
tion of abstaining from the use of the suffrage or
of voting blank. The Paris liberal press is in
p neral opposed to this renunciation of the elec-
toral right, and particularly disapproves of the
project of depositing blank paper in the ballot-box,
since, in the first place, public opinion is not
sufficiently ripe for such an expression of feeling,
and, secondly, owing to the want of unanimity,
the blanks would of necessity be comparatively
few, but by which numbers the strength of the
democracy would infallibly be estimated with de-
rision in official quarters.
News reaches Paris from Vienna of an import-
ant, if not a serious nature. The Official Gazette
publishes an ordonnanco, countersigned by all the
members of the cabinet, setting forth that excep-
tional measures are about to be applied to the
city of Prague and its vicinity. It seems the go-
vernment has felt itself obliged, in consequence of
the agitation in Bohemia, to have recourse to pro-
ceedings of a severe character. We are as yet
without any trustworthy information as to the
state of things which has called forth, and
is said to justify, the recourse to extremely
harsh measures. What the full scope and ten-

dency of those measures are we are yet unin-
formed, but according to a despatch in the North
East Correspondence, it is intended to suspend in
Bohemia some of the fundamental laws ; and the
ordonnance to this effect was to appear in the
official journal. The Lieutenant-Governor of
Bohemia, M. de Kellersperg, is removed from his
functions, with a pension as a recompense for his
services, being replaced by Field-Marshal Lieu-
tenant Koller. The journal adds that the
communal police of Prague are suspended
from their duties. There is enough in all
this to indicate an amount of restlessness on
the part of the populations, and uneasiness in the
mind of the government, to show that Austria,
like so many other countries, has just now an ac-
cumulation of troubles on her hands. We learn
here, too, that repressive measures, though of less
gravity, have been also carried out in the Tyrol.
The Diet of Innapruck, having rejected the propo-
sitions of the government concerning the ap-
plication of the law affecting schools,
the Governor of the Tyrol, in consequence of that
vote, closed the Diet iu the name of the Emperor,
adding that the government reserved to itself the
employment of the necessary means to-insure in
that province, as everywhere else, the execution of
the fundamental laws of the empire. You aro

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aware that the. Tjrspl In one of the Austrian pro-
visoes where eierimisl influence is particularly
Among, antt tbe Tsar touching the schools is just
one of those which have been most vigorously
combatted by the clergy.
The Bourse exhibited a good deal of activity
to-day, and all the principal securities rose con-
siderably. This unusual firmness of the market is
attributed to the report of a general disarmament,
the duration of which the Emperor was said to be
ready to assure by moans of an international con-
gress. The Bente, very much in demand, olosed
at 891 r. 73c.; Italian, 32fr. Mc.; Mobilier,
278 fr. 73c. ; Spanish, 272 fr. 60c.