The Express.
London, England, 1868-07-27 00:00:00

THE EAST.

A tolograre from Trieste states that a civil war
broke out in Thibet between the Dalai-Lama and
the rajahs. The former obtained a victory.
The Russians bad occupied Samarkand and were
before Bokhara. The emirs did not order any
direct hostilities against Russia. In a proclama-
tion to the inhabitants the Russians prohibited
oommeroe with India.

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(PEON WS OWN

PARIS, 817WDAT ETIMIFINO.

N. Henri Rochefort has adopted M. Emile 011i-
vier'e advice, and determined to try oonclusiolui
with the government in a oourt of law as to his
liability to print the oppressively long communiqu.f
which M. Pinard has perrereely served him with.
This determination is not announced in the new
number of the Lantern, which merely says the sub-
ject is under consideration, but in a letter to the
papers. The law gives a private individual the
right to insist upon the insertion of a reply to any
article in which his name may be mentioned of not
more than double the length of the article itself.
No limit is laid down as to the length of a govern-
ment 00171111tatiqUe ; but M. Rochefort submits that
the courts must find one unless they would con-
demn the law itself as against reason and
impossible of execution. His little red-covered
weekly publication contains 60 pages. The Minis-
ter of the Interior thinks it a good joke to ask
him to insert a communiqué which would fill 45
of those pages. That is simply confiscation. The
communiqué consists of a full report from the
Moniker of a debate in the Senate upon a
petition complaining of M. Sandon's confinement
in a madhouse. If M. Rochefort is bound to sub-
mit to this he sees no reason why next Saturday
the minister should not send him the " Memorial
de Sainte Helene," in six volumes, by way of a
communique in answer to three lines about Napoleon
I. That might be followed the week after by the
" History of the Consulate and the Empire," in
twenty-two volumes. M. Rochefort calculates
that in Stamps, paper, printing, 4te., it would
cost him 7,000 franca to publish M. Pinard's
communiqué. Ho naturally prefers running the
risk of incurring the maximum fine of I,ooofr.
for refusing the insertion; and it is the minister's
fault that, by a reductio ad absurdum, it is shown
to be seven times more profitable to set at de-
fiance an imperial law than to obey it.
X. Blaze de Bury, the author of a lyric drama
called La Jeunesse de Goethe, some years since en-
trusted his manuscript to the illustrious Meyer-
beer, who undertook to compose music with a view
to bring the piece out as an opera at some theatre
to be subsequently agreed upon. Meyerbeer set
to work accordingly, and it is alleged that he
quite finished the score shortly before his
death. M. Blase de Bury has now brought
an action against the executors, claiming
to have the manuscript and score delivered up to
him. The defendants rely upon the following
chime) in Meyerbeer'a will :
It is my express desire that within a few days of the
opening of this my will, the sheets marked "Poulos di-
tachim—Sketchim and unfinished pieces by Ifeyerbier,"
be separated from the rest of my papers by my wife and
executor and put into a special box carefully sealed.
If any one of my grandchildren should some day have a
vocation for music, these sheets containing my " musical
thoughts" are to be given to him. I make the like order
in regard to my non-published compositions at the time of
my decease.

The case was called on on Friday, but put off
for a week. M. Leberquier is counsel for M.
Blase de Bury, and M. Crkmieui, an
intimate friend and co-religionist of Meyer-
beer, for the executors. Of course, if M.
de Bury can make out a contract, the will cannot
revoke it. Bet should it turn out, contrary to the
plaintiff's allegation, that the score was left " un-
finished," there is a good deal of authority for
holding that an artist's reputation is not to be
endangered by a composition to which he had not
put the last touches being made public. It was,
I think, decided in England a long time ago that
the executors of a painter cannot be compelled to
deliver en unfinished portrait.

The Countess Cowper has been entertaining a

succession of visitors of Wrest Park, Beds. Among her
ladyship's guests have been : The Marchioness of Abercorn
and Ladies Hamilton, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the
Marquis Vitelleschi, the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon,
the Earl St. Maur, Count Maffei, Viscount and Viscountess
Sydney, Lord and Lady Dufferin, Lord Henry Percy,
Lord and Lady Suffield, Lord and Lady Whanicliffe and
Lady Maud Lamellas, Hon. B. L. Melville, Hon. Mr.
Duncan, Mr. and Mrs. John Leslie, Mrs. Augustus Craven,
Mr. Clare Vyner, tee.

Lord and Lady Taunton and Hon. Hines La-
boucbere left town on Saturday for Overstowey, for the
64,430/1.