The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-17 00:00:00

FRANCE.

Several of the journals of Saturday evening state
that a rumour prevailed yesterday in the Salle des
Conferences of the Legislative Body that the Chamber
would be dissolved beforo long, and that the new
elections would take place in the course of the
spring.

The Journal de l'Aisne reports the disappearance
of M. Beffroy, Mayor of Oisy, the proprietor of two
large sugar factories, one in that town and the other
at Villers les Guise. le has been declared bank-
rupt, and the authorities have taken possession of
the property.
Several journals state that M. Charles Gamier,
the architect of the Grund Opera, intends to be-
come a candidate for the chair in the Academy of
Fine Arts, left vacant by the death of his master,
M. Lebas.

M Renan has, it is announced, completed his
new work, ►vhich is to bear the title of " Saint.
Paul." The MS. has been for some time in the
hands of the printer.
The Committee on the Press Bill met on Saturday
and heard observations from M. Pinard, Minister
of the Interior, and M. Baroche, Minister of
Justice.

A Rottirdam journal has discovered a new
argument for the abolition of capital punish•
ment. The Budget of the Minister of Justice in
Holland for next year comprises an item of 7,046
florins for the salaries of the executioners. But as
in that country only one execution takes place, on
an average, in ten years, each one costs 74,400
florins in payment to the headsman alone.
The bulletin of the Paris Observatory of yes-
terday morning gives the following as the at-
mospheric situation :—" There has been a rather
rapid fall of the glass in the south-west of the
Baltic, but it has risen in Scotland and England.
The wind is strong in the North Sea and over
the Pas-de-Calais, from N.W. to N.T.W. In
the west of Europe and on the Irish 'and Portu-
guese coasts the weather is calm, and the sky
begins to clear in the south of England and
north of France. The wind is W.S.W. in the
south of Europe and in Sicily."—ln Paris yester-
day the weather was unseasonably mild, with the
sun shining oat occasionally as in spring. At three
in the 'afternoon the thermometer marked 8.50 cent.
(47 1-5 Fahr.)
According to letters from Copenhagen, in the
Debatte of Vienna, M. de Quaade is not to return
to Berlin, or perhaps, if Denmark continues to be
represented at the Court of Prussia, M. de Quaade
will be accompanied by some one charged with the
negotiations relative to the northern part of Schles-
wig-Holstein.

" The Court of Honour," says the Siecle, " con-
stituted on the proposition of MM. Ravin and
Gueroult, has met a first time."

An explosion of fire-damp occurred on Friday
morning in a coal mine at Blangy (Saone-et-Loire).
Two galleries in which some men were at work,
behind the spot where the disaster occurred, are
obstructed by the debris, and several days will be
required to clear the approaches. Eighty dead
bodies have already been got out. Every effort is
being made to save, if possible, the men who may
be still alive. The Emperor, on hearing the disas-
ter, forwarded a sum of 10,000 f. to the Prefect of
the department, to be distributed amongst the
families of the victims, and has since sent one of
his aides-de-camp to make a report on the catas-
trophe.

The Union, in announcing the death of M.
Dreysse, inventor of the needle-gun, adds :—" Will
a statue be raised to him ? Perhaps so. But Gari-
baldi will certainly not aid in collecting subscrip-
tions, as the general must have but a slight en-
thusiasm with regard to the needle-gun."
The prosecution commenced against the Phare
de la Loire for the publication of a letter respecting
the affair at the cemetery of Montmartre on All
Souls' Day has been abandoned for want of proof.
The charge against the journal was the publication
of false news.

In the Kerveguen affair, since the refusal of M.
Schneider to preside over the tribunal of honour,
the four gentlemen first named have added to their
number AI. Scgris, Viscount Lanjuinais, and
Buffet..
BounsE, Dec. 16, Three o'clock.—The market
closed as follows :

4} per Cent.
End of mouth —
3 per Cent
End of mouth 6B 75
Credit Mobilier
End of month 167 50
Credit Foncier 1365
End of month 1367 N
RAILWA'

Bank Shares 3320
ItaPan Loan
End of month 45 45
Mexican Loan
Do. Bonds
Spanish Threes 88 25
home Debt /
Deferred —

Account
Orleans
Northern 1175
Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern..... 555
Western

Eastern • • 533k
Sardinian

Austrian
Lombard 355
North of Spain 62i
Saragossa
Roman O5

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, Monday, Dee. 10.
An eibeLlent letter irom the pen of M. Louis Blanc
kppears, in the Temps of to-day. It is devoted to the
Fenian utrage of last week, and is remarkable for judg-
ment, impartiality, and literary force. This writer, the
London correspondent of the Temps, always commands
attention in Paris ; and it is fortunate for Parisians that a
man of so much moderation and soundness of sense should
be in the habit of sending to Paris denriptions of events
that transpire in " perfidious Albion."

Two young artistes of great talent and accomplishment
are staying at Brussells just now--Mdlle. Virginie Huet,
pianist, and Mdlle. Helene de Katow, violoncellist. The
concert which the two young ladies have premised to give
is looked forward to with much expectation.
Gustave Dory's immense picture which hung in the
central salon of the annual exhibition at Paris this year
was bought the other day by an American amateur for the
handsome sum of £2,200. The subject is a gambling-table
at Baden, and the picture vividly suggests the ordinary
life at a German kursaal. In order to give to the picture
an additional value as a faithful transcript of an
actual scene, a number of ladies, more remarkable for their
beauty and the courage they displayed at the gambling-
table than for their respectability, sat for their portraits
in this picture.

The widow of Iturbide, the Emperor who reigned In
Mexico in the early part of the century, with the title of
Auguste 1., is now in Paris. It is said that the ex-Em-
press is in deep distress, and that she has come to solicit
help from the French Government.

The apartments of the Prince Imperial at the Tuileries
are not yet completed, and the Court will not leave St.
Cloud till the 23rd of the month.

The Petite Presse says that Prussia is in mourning.
The journals of Berlin announce •tke death of one through
whom the fate of Europe has changed—Nicholas Dreyse,
the inventor of the needle-gun and the grenade rifle.
" Quel dommage !" exclaims the Presse, "Un homme
qui avait si bien commun4 1"
The magistracy of Paris have been labouring with great
anxiety to find out some means of improving the lighting
of the city. Every one has remarked the experiments
with the electric light made at the Port St. Denis. The
entrance to the great station of Strasbourg is lighted by
the electric light.

Two letters written by Garibaldi from Caprera have
just been published. They are addressed respectively to
the chairman of the public meeting held in Glasgow,
Nov. 7, and to the chairman of the Orange Associa-
tion of Glasgow. Copies of resolutions passed by the
" public meeting" and by the Orange Association,
expressing sympathy with Italy, had been forwarded to
Garibaldi ; and the letters referred to are in acknow-
ledgment of the receipt of these resolutions. The tone
of the letters is almost identical. The General thanks
his friends in North Britain, compliments them upon
their love of freedom, and concludes his epistle in both
eases with a request that the Glasgow people will con-
tinue to afford him' that material and moral support
which they have always been willing to render to him
and to Italy.
Zeidler's Correspondenz, a semi-official Berlin paper, says
that the French diplomats in Southern Germany are again
busily employed in recommending alliance with France as
the great Catholic and Conservative Power. However
successful they may be elsewhere, while Prince Hohenlohe
is in office at Munich they will not estrange Bavaria from
the Confederacy. This loyal and patriotic Prince told the
Bavarian Chamber that, in the event of a crisis, Bavaria
would stand by Prussia and defend the right.
The Times Berlin correspondent states that Count
Bismarck has informed the members of the Prussiau Par-
liament that the Prussian envoys to the principal Courts
will he shortly recalled, to be reaccredited in the name of
the North German Confederacy.
The Livonian Parliament has voted an address to the
Czar, requesting the continuance of the German language
as the official medium of communication in the Baltic
provinces of Russia. The petitioners remind their sove-
reign that the privileges of the province they represent
were sanctioned in the agreement of July 4, 1710, as
well as in the Nystadt Treaty of Peace. The answer
to the petition is awaited with feverish anxiety at
several towns in those prc vinces.

The needle-gun now definitely adopted by the Russian
War Office is of the Prussian pattern, but the needle being
somewhat shorter and thicker the rapidity of the firing is
said to be slightly increased. If Russian accounts are
trustworthy, an ordinary soldier will easily accomplish
eight discharges in a minute, while a skilled hand is stated
to have no difficulty in reaching up to fourteen. There
are not -many new rifles being made, the old ones admit-
ting of adaptation.