The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-21 00:00:00

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, Sunday Evening.

There was a Cabinet Council on Friday, at which
the Empress and the members of the Privy Council
were prevent, and also a Cabinet Council yesterday,
at which the Emperor presided. I have reason to
rely upon the statement made to me in an official
quarter that the chief subject of discussion yester-
day related to the order and the exact points to be
submitted to the proposed Congress. After all, the
information of The Sun upon this subject has turned
out to be perfectly correct, as well as the comments
of those Paris papers which I noticed.
A letter from Florence, in the Moniteur, gives
some explanations relative to corps of Volunteers to
be commanded by Garibaldi, which diminish the
importance of that step, and take from it the aggre-
sive character which has been attributed to it. The
letter says that " the enrolment has not the revolu-
tionary character of the spontaneous enrolment con-
nected with the expedition of 1860. If the precautions
and reserve of the decree, and the conditions of the
engagements be considered; if it be corroborated
that General Garibaldi, appointed by the decree to
the command of the National Volunteers, belonged
up to the day of his retirement to the regular army,
it will be acknowledged thatin fact the enrolment
of Volunteers amounts to little else than the creation
of a regular supplemental corps, to be distinguished
from the other corps only for its having been called
into service by another mode than the annual
levy of contingents, and by there being more re-
straint in regard to the time of its duration. Thus
the hopes of peace are still not seriously disturbed,
and the reports in regard to the Congress are still
more favourably received by the public. At all
events the field is open for diplomatic arrangements,
although there is no doubt that if the Venetia quest
tion do not receive a speedy, amicable solution, Italy
will be irresistibly hurried into the chances of war."
According to another account from Florence, the
King of Italy, who was to have left the palace
on the 15th for the head quarters of the army, was
still there, and another favourable augury is drawn
from this celay i n the King's departure.

The Siecle from- its own information, and that of
the Independance Beige, a well-informed Brussels
paper, says that the French Government has not
given up the idea of European arbitration with a
programme limited to three points—Venetia,
Schleswig Holstein, and German Reform. This
programme was formally proposed to the English
Government by the French Ambassador, the Prince
de la Tour D'Auvergne, on the 9th of this month,
and probably on the same day an identical com-
munication was made by Baron Talleyrand to the
Cabinet of St. Petersburg.

The trial of Aspe for the murder and mutilation
of the woman at Toulouse is not concluded. Yes-
terday a singular incident took place. The jury
all visited the wine shop where the murder was
committed.

An interesting discussion has taken place in the
Legislative Body on the important subject of local
government and centralisation. In the course of
it the Count de la Tour said it was the Revolution
'which struck the last blow at our system of pro-
vincial liberty which was almost destroyed in the
reign of Louis XIV. The Revolutionists, wishing
to triumph at any price over the resistance of the
provinces, the private rights of cities and corpora-
tions were abolished. All private liberty was de-
stroyed, even that of adoring Jesus Christ. After
the Reign of Terror conscience recovered its
rights, but provincial and local privileges were not
entirely restored. The Emperor promulgated de-
crees of the 25th March, 1852 and 13th April 1863,
which gave certain ministerial powers to the Pre-
fects. Wishing seriously to give local rights and
privileges to the department and the commune, the
Government organised a plan giving considerable
extension to the powers of elective councils. This
was the origin of the bill now before the Chamber
for the improvement of local government, and its
principle was such as to deserve a favourable re-
ception_
Colonel Giuseppe Pace, who was one of Gari-
baldi's chief officers in the Sicily, expedition, has
died at Naples. Col. Pace distinguished himself by

• ;rk
Calabrias, his native province, which he twice re-
presented in the Italian Parliament.
It is reported that M. 8., the treasurer of the
Sous Comptoir of the railways, a man of 60, has
decamped with a rum of three millions, obtained
by means of forged documents from the Comptoir
d'Escompte of Paris (the official discount office).
The fraud, it is said, will not in any way compro-
mise the original establishment.
Paris, with all its gaiety, is after all the most
religious capital of Europe—at least if a true esti-
mate may be formed from the large proportion of
inhabitants who attend public worship. To-day
(Whitsunday) is one of the great religious fetes of
the year, and I have had an opportunity of observ-
ing that from the early hour of six o'clock in the
riorning until mid-day several of the metropolitan
churches have been immensely crowded. The beau-
ful weather and some village fetes in the vicinity of
Paris tended almost to vacate Paris in the course of
the day, but be it remarked that the pleasure-seek-
ing population attended to their religious duties
first. -Whatever may he the religious observances
of Sunday in London, I will venture to say from
occular proof that more Parisians than Londoners
went to church to-day—aye, and that this vast
class of Roman Catholics here were at least as " re-
ligiously and devoutly disposed" as the congrega-
tions of London.

M. Berlioz has been appointed conservator of the
instrumental museum of the Imperial Conservatory
of Music, in the room of M. Clapisson. A sale
of musical instruments, forming the private col-
lection of the late M. Clapisson, has been con-
founded by some of the papers with the sale of
the museum. That museum is intact. It includes
some of the most curious and valuable musical in-
struments in 00 world. Some are of the date of
1612. One instrument of the style of Louis XIII.
has a painting on the panel by Teniers. The ap-
pointment is honorary, no pay being attached to it,
and M. Berlioz has accepted it from a pure love of
art. The Institute have granted a pension to M.
Clapisson's widow, and she is allowed to continue to
occupy her apartment there the same as in the time
of her deceased husband.

One of the Paris tribunals has granted a decree
of separation to a husband whose Wife absented her-
self from home for 23 days, and who, on her return
home at one o'clock in the morning, refus-ed to give
an account of where she had been. A French pro-
verb says that " The absent are always in the
wrong."

Mr. DISRAELI is said to be one of the kindliest of
mankind, but, sagaciously remarks the Spectator, the man
who sketched Rigby must have a trace in him of the true
attorney. According to this ingenious mode of argument,
what a rascal at heart Shakspere must have been, judging
from his delineation of lago and Jachimo ! What a sneak
must be Mr. Dickens, estimating his character from his
account of trriah Heep ! What a snob was Mr. Thackeray,
when viewed through the remembrance of Jeames ! What
a consummate hypocrite Moliere, regarded in the light cast
back upon himself by his portraiture of Tartuffe !
A CHILD KILLED BY A GAME COCK.-011 Satur-
day Mr. Humphrey held an inquest at Old Ford as
to the death of Charles Winter, aged three years. It ap-
peared that on Tuesday week the child was standing at its
parents' door, 32, Palm-street, when a ferocious game cock,
belonging to a neighbour named Monk, which had been
frequently known to attack other children, flew up at him,
and putting one claw on his head and the other on his
shoulder pecked at its face, which streamed down with
blood. The child was taken in doors, and a doctor was
sent for. The medical evidence proved that deceased died
from effusion of serum on the brain caused by a shock to
the system, arising from the attack and pecks of the game
cock, as well as from fright. The owner of the cock
treated the matter very cavalierly, and thought his furious
bird of more importance than the lives of children. The
coroner hinted that the parents could take proceedings in
another court for the loss they had sustained, and the jury
returned a verdict—" That deceased died from effusion on
the brain, caused by being attacked and pecked by a cer-
tain game cock."

THE PROPOSED CHANNEL TUNNEL.—The question
of a tunnel under the Channel has again surged up. The
Propagateur of Line mentions that fresh surveys have been
commenced, and that huts have been erected on the
Camyn dyke between Calais ani Sangatte to contain the
offect4 caul inetrurneute of engineer%