The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-20 00:00:00

PARIS CORRESPONDENCE.

SUNDAY.
The French clerical journals publish a new decree of
Pius IX. relative to the excommunications latae senterdie.
The decree is worthy of the Syllabus, being to the
full as rigorous, as despotic, and as confirma-
tory of the maintenance of a pure theocracy.
It is promulgated "of the Pope's own accord, of
his certain Inowledge,and in the plenitude of his apostolic
power." His anathemas are directed against all who
hinder directly cr indirectly the exercise of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, whether at the tribunal of conscience or the
tribunal of man, as well as those who give such orders to
the civil tribunals and those who publish them ; all who
make laws or decrees interfering with the rights or
liberties of the Church; all who have recourse to the civil
power to counteract the letters or other acts of
the Holy See, and who impede their promulgation;
all who usurp or hold the jurisdiction and the
properties belonging to ecclesiastics, who inter-
fere with the estates, rights, and properties belonging
to the Roman Church; and finally all who appeal froth the
decisions and orders of the Roman Pontiffs to a future
universal council, as well as those who support and en-
courage them in this appeal. Judged by this decree few
of the Catholic crowned heads of Europe would escape
excommunication.

Is the new Ministry yet constituted? Such is the ques-
tion of the day, and I cannot give you a definite answer.
Yesterday it was believed in the Chambers that all was
arranged, and several papers announced particulars in the
evening. Tho Presse states confidently that M. 011ivier
was charged with the task of forming a Cabinet, of which
M. de Forcade was not to be a member. The objection of
the deputy of Var to the Minister of the Interior as a
colleague is known to be pretty well insuperable,
the Empress herself having vainly endeavoured to bring
about a coalition. The Presse observes that the entrance
of M. Daru into the new 011ivier Cabinet was uncertain
and, according to the ilioniteur Universel, the fact is
that M. Daru, when summoned to the Tuileries, laid the
conditions upon which he would accept office before his
Imperial master, which conditions being refused, he declined
to enter any Ministry. The great difficulty with respect to
an 011ivier Cabinet is the divergence which has taken
place between that statesman and the Left Centre, which
has hitherto voted with the Lcft in all the contested elec-
tion divisions. M. Buffet and his friends will not join M.
011ivier without some very clear guarantees as to their

future course.
Some stir has been made about the elevation of M.
lc Vicomte de Richernont to the dignity of senator,
with its corresponding emolument of £1,200 a year
No one knows any claim to distinction on the part of M.
de Richemont and the only possible explanation is that
M. de Foreado desires an electoral vacancy for Marmande
and Villeneuve d'Agen. The constituents will be able to
console themselves for the loss of a deputy whose abilities
they failed to recognise, by being represented for the future
by an ex-Minister of the Interior.

The Peuple Francais remarks on the persistency with
which several journals have declared that the prosecutions
against the press were undertaken at the instigation of the
Empress. The decision of the Council of Ministers was
taken in consequence of an article in the Rappel "The Two
Parias," which appeared on the 4th of December,
when the Empress had not returned to Paris. The
effect of this explanation is somewhat marred by the
prosecution of the Paris Journal for an article called
" The Letter of the King of Ivetot to the Empress
Eugenie.'
An important meeting of snore than 5,000 people, mostly
weavers, has come off at Lyons in favour of a Free Trade
policy. The gathering adopted some resolutions to the
effect that the commercial arrangements in the Treaty
of 1860 should be still further extended and carried out.
The Empress has presented Princess Metternich with
some valuable presents from the Levant, and various
objects of Oriental costume, in remembrance of her journey.
This act of friendliness puts an end to the rumours which
had prevailed with respect to a coolness that had arisen
between the Tuileries and the Austrian Embassy.
M. Degouno Demnicques has presented a petition to the
Senate, in which he demands the abrogation of the laws
that pronounced perpetual exile against the two branches
of the Bourbon family who reigned in France. A former
petition of the same character, which M. Degouno
Demnicques presented in 1867, was rejected by the
assembly. In both petitions the hon. deputy quotes the
words of the present Emperor when he returned to France
in 1848, and declared that, having known the bitterness of
exile, ho would rejoice to see the day when all civil
disorders should terminate, and there would be no neces-
sity for political exiles.

The Journal des Debats, in referring to the American
President's Message, points out the inconsistencythat is to
be observed between the opinion of the President on the sub-
ject of Cuban recognition, and the views expressed by the
Washington Cabinet as to the recognition of the Southern
States as belligerents by the English Government. It
adds that the Foreign Secretary might profit by this
assertion in the next argument that takes place on the
Alabama question.