The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-04 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, THURSDAY EVENING.
A Coancil ( f Ministers was held yesterday at the
residence of the Minister of Justice.
The French Government has instructed its Re-
presentatives in foreign countries to disavow the
Muratist proclamations which have Leen distii-
buted. These proclamations,,however, have pro-
dueedDo effect in the kingdom of tine Two SieilieQ-
The Minister of Marine ie., received despatches
from Hong Kong. to the 12th.of July. They an-
nounce that Admiral Guerin had despatched two
ships of war to protect M. de Montigny, the French
Consul at Shanghai, whose person had been
threatene i.
The Monites& publishes a decree promulgating
the convention conclude l between France and the
Republic of Venezuela for the reciprocal establish-
ment of consuls in the two countries. The con-
vention c eitains the usual clauses relative to
affixing the arms of the nation over the consular
residences; their personal inviolabiAy, as well as
that of the archives and papers connected with their
office, Ate.
Politics occupy the attention of the Paris jour-
nals in only a very insignificant degree. The
Siecle dilates on the advantage of the water-cu e
and on the great obligations under which Piies.;-
nitz, the inventor, has placed mankind by intro-
ducing it to the world. The Union, complains of
the continued dearness of butchers' meat in Paris,
and declares itself opposed to the present monopole.
The Constitutionnel contains a lon(Y article on the
work of an engineer of the Pont7-et-Chiusseei,
named Valles, respecting the dreadful inundation;
which so frequently visit France, and the beat mea
of neutralising, if not preventing, the dam lee which
they produce. Our contemporary, adopting the
views of the author, expresses the opinion that in-
undations, if properly regulated, are far from being
injurious to the laud over which the water is
spread, the muddy residue which it leaves behind
on retiring being of a meet fertilising character.
The consequence is that, ie. succeeding years, the
land which has been flooded produ es far more abun-
dantly than it had done before. The whole ques-
tion to Le s Ived therefore is so to manage matters
that the waters may run off without precipitation,
and the removal of the valuable surface-soil be pre-
vented. Our contemporary, on the subject, in.th( s
the following observations :
" It is easy to see the error committed by those who,
irstead of combating the mischief effected by turning to
account the good which it might produce, have pre-
tended to suppress inundations altogether by confining
the waters within certain channels. Such La; been the
object of the greater part of the hydraulic works under-
taken for many years past. Longitudinal dykes have
been raised en both sides of the rivers, and it has been
sought to force the water, whatever might be its mdse,
to flow off in the circumscribed space trace] out for it.
What has resulted from this system f On the one hand,
the valleys have been deprived of the prec oas benefit of
the dep isits ; and on the oti er, catastrophes have not
been prevented, but rather aggravated. The sy-te aof
dykes, wrote the Emperor last year in Lis well-known
letter to the Minister of Public Wee.lts, is only a pallid
tive, ruinous to the,State, a Id imper'ect as regards the
interests to be pretected. Vo-,• teey do not offer the
conditions of resistance necessary to keep beck the water,
and are always brok,o' thr. lige in some pl ices during
considerable floeds, and the water then rushes over the
sureourdieg land with greater violence that it has been
kept at a greater height by the dykes themselves. It i,
impossible fur these dykes to be made more resisting, as
no one can calculate wish any degree of certainty that
they will be high enough tprevent their being e
over-
flowed, as no limit can be fixed to the height to which
the water may rise. That system of defence is therefore
ineffectual, dangerous, and contrary to the object which
it is proposed to attain."
What, therefore, are the moans to be employed
and the works to be executed to prevent the ill
effects of the rise of rivers, to lessen their violence,
and to convert into a benefit what is now a great
disaster ? This is what the Constitationnel propesei
to examine in a future article.
The Debate, in no icing the elevation of Xi-.
Macaulay to the House of Lotels, pays the following
well merited tribute t; the talents of the dis:in-
guished writer :
"This just leeonpense honours both the Government
which has co derred it and the eminent historian who,
after having served his country in the House of Corn-
mone, will find in the House of Lards a theatre more in
cenformi y with the elevation of his talent and the phi-
losophical character of his eloqu ,nce. Recently nomi-
nated a foreign a=sociate of the Aeadeney o' Mural and
Po itical Sciences of F ancP, Mr Macaulay may jest!),
be considered as belonging to let e.ed Europe as a ell as
to England. Hi; account of the Revolution of 1683,
which is so ; xect and elovent, se precise in details and
in the study of character, amid so philosophical and ele
vated in thought, is a veritable course of cenetitutional
policy by which all those who interest themselves in the
good government of nations ought to profit. This noble
interpreter of the English constitution, this cieli;htened
friend of liberty, who has become, by force of clearness
and of interest a popular historian, has done in his cone-
Ay and beyond his country all the good that talent and
uprightness can produce in this world."
'niece is, however, one subject of a political na-
ture to which the Debate, the Union, . and the Ga-
zette de France allude, thotteh in the slightest man-
ner, viz., the article in the Post on the Pi incipalitioe
They all notice it for the purpose, they state, iof