The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-17 00:00:00

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, Friday Evening.
There is no news to-day as regards France, but
the German papers speak of diplomatic communi-
cations between Austria and Prussia upon the sub-

ject of indications of dissatisfaction which have been
manifested in regard to the administration of the

Duchies.

The Paris papers follow with interest the pro-
gress of the discussions in the English Parliament.
The Siecle, which never omits an opportunity of
attacking the Government in regard to Ireland,
regrets the rejection of the amendment to the ad-
dress proposed by The O'Donoghue. " The amend-
ment (says the Siecle,, which contains an accurate
description of the real grievances of Ireland, and
which points out very clearly the situation of that
unfortunate country, was vehemently opposed by
the representatives of the Crown. It is a melan-
choly fact that whoever now attain power, they are
always inclined to repel the truth."

A gentleman connected with the Electric Tele-
graph at Paris makes the following curious and
interesting remarks upon the transmission of her
Majesty's Speech. He says that he read the Speech
sooner than he could have heard it. He knew the
last word ten minutes after he received the first,
and only five minutes after the Speech was con-
cluded, for the transmission commenced as soon as
her Majesty began to speak. If the sonorous voice
of the Queen could have been heard across the
Channel, it could not have been heard so quickly
as through the medium of the electric telegraph.
Sound does not pass instantly from one place to
another, but a certain time is required for it to tra-
verse a distance. The average time required for the
transmission of sound is a second for 333 metres. If
we examine the difference of longitude and latitude of
London and Paris, in a direct line the distance from
London to !Paris is 420 kilometres. Calculating
333 metres per second, sound would require about
21 minutes to traverse the space. If, then, we
could have heard the voice of Queen Victoria here,
it could only have been in 21 minutes and some
seconds after the words had been pronounced. Thus,
by an originality of science, electricity brought us
the Royal Speech much more rapidly than the
sound of the words could have reached us. The
whole speech was known in Paris before the inhabi-
tants of London could know the contents of it.

A strange and fatal accident took place a day or
two ago at Lesparre. On the arrival of the coach
from Bas-Medor, one of the passengers got out, but
on descending his coat struck against the step. A
loud report was heard, and the passengers were
horror-struck at seeing that a person behind him
had fallen down dead. There was a pistol loaded
with ball in the gentleman's pocket, and striking
against the wheel as he descended the pistol went
off. The involuntary author of this sudden death
was arrested.

Private letters from Rome of the 10th inst. state
that the diplomatic relations between the Holy See
and the Russian Government are completely inter-
rupted. According to the last despatches the cause
of this cessation of amicable relations was a note
sent to the Russian Government by the Pope com-
plaining of the words used towards his Holiness by
Baron de Meyendorff, the Russian Ambassador, on
the occasion of the address presented to the Pope on
New Year's-day. Your readers will recollect that
I minutely described what took place at the time.
The Russian Minister censured the Pope in very
warm terms for having, as he alleged, endea-
voured to uphold the Roman Catholic religion
both by violence and intrigue. Such at least was
the charge made by implication against the
Pope by the Russian Minister. The note
of the Pope also contains some other
charges against Baron de Meyendorff. It
was not supposed that the Baron would be
immediately recalled, and, according to one account,
he
was likely to remain some time at Rome, in order
to eV) him an ciVortullitY of making an explana-