Star.
London, England, 1814-12-26 00:00:00

FRENCH PAPERS.

• -
PARIS,,IDECEMBER su.
Ti is %aid that the Session of the two Chambers will.
bz closed by a Royal Sitting.
• Count Data is appointed Intendant General of the
Ara;. Mareclial de Camp Baron Bran de Villeret
has been appointed Secretary General to the War
Derartment.
Monsieur set off at eight yesterday morning for
Sens. lle will assist at the public ccramony which is
to take place for the restoration of the monument
which contains the remains of his august parents, the

Dauphin and Dauphiness.
The monument at Calais for consecrating to pos-
terity the return of Louis XVIII. is finished. It is a
beautiful marble pillar, of the Doric order.
The King and Queen of Bavaria are expected to
arrive at Munich on the 91st inst. from Vienna.

BANK 'OF FRANCF.•
The Chamber of Peers, in its sitting of the 13th,
heard the report of Count Lecouteulx de Cantelen,
on the plan of law relative to the Bank of France.—
The Committee proposed the adoption of the plan
with some slight amendments. One of the principal
enactments consists in placing the Bank under the
high superintendance of the Minister of Finance ;
but by the terms of the 4th clause, the Minister can
demand of the Bank, neither loan nor discount, nor
any employment of funds whatever ; he will be em-
powered to prohibit all operations contrary to the
enactments of the law ; he may invite the Governors
of the Bank to diminish their discounts, when lie
shall judge that precaution necessary. If the Council
Gene' al does. not think proper to comply with this
invitation, they must communicate the reasons of
their refusal to the Minister :.but on a new invitation
the Council General will be bound to comply. The
Reporter observed—ig that these classes decided what
Ithe Minister of Finance could not require from the
Bank, and thus removed these grounds of distrust
which might arise from his negociations and relations
with the Bank, as having both the Royal Treasury
and the Bank of France appertaining to his functions.
At the same time they gave the GovernMent the
high and important power of taking. the necessary
precautions that the Bank should pay its notes—pre-
cautions which the Governors of the Bank . them-
selves acknowledged must be more efficacious and
impartial under the tutelary intervention at authority.
Besides, the foresight of the Minister will be always
mare enlightened and extended than what the Go-
vernors of the Bank can exercise, particularly when
events in our external relations may dictate, from
motives of high policy, the precautions indicated." •
In the Sitting of the Chamber of Decodes of the
19th, M. Clement reported on a petitkn for restoring
the old legend on the royal coins, sit rumen Domini
lentdictum, instead of the present legend, Loraine sal.
Arum Jac Regent. The reporter recommended the re-
taining of the latter as more appropriate.
The Chamber then proceeded to discuss an amend-,
meat made by the Peers on the plan of law relative
to the import of iron. The law, as passed by the
Deputies, subjected all foreign iron in en:repot to the
:high duty which the l.tw imposed ; but the amend-
,utent of the Peers reduced it to the lower duty which
existed at the period of importation.
Against the amendment it was urged that it would
be ruinous to the native iron-masters, from the im.
mense quantities of foreign iron introduced, which
had been greatly animented during the time the law
bad keen under discussion. It was stated in memo-
rials distributed by the iron masters, that these arri-
eels amounted in value to more than 20 millions,
without reckoning an incalculable quantity that had
entered under the old duties, or fraudulently along
the extensive line of customs for the two months du-
ring which they remained inactive. It was stated,
th.it the iron-masters of France could not afford their
enwrought iron at less than 21 francs the 50 kilogr. ;
and how, it was asked, could they maintain a com-
petition with iron which could be sold for 15 fr. the
quintal ? They could not even meet the price of
22 fr.. 50 cents., to which the duty of 7 fr. 50 cents.,
fixed by the law, would raise the price of foreign
iron.

On the other hand, it was argued that the iron
now in entrepot had been sent to France under the
faith of existing laws ; and that every principle of
justice and policy required that it should not be sub-
jected to a retroactive tarif of ditties. It was also
observed, that if the amendment was rejected, and
the Peers persisted in supporting it, the iron-masters
would be deprived of the benefit of the law for the
present session ; one consequence of which would be,
that the toreign iron now in entrepot must either re-
main there, or be sold under the low duty of 4 fr.
the 100 kilogr.. It was also denied that the quantity
of foreign lion imported was so great as was asserted;
and at any rate it was ridiculous to suppose that the
:holders of foreign iron would sell it at a low price
for the mere benefit of consumers.
The question was at last put to the vote, and the
Chamber adopted the amendment of the Peers by a
majority of 86 to 80.
The Duke of Dalmatia, Minister at War, has is-
sued a general order for expediting the prompt dis--
charge of the arrears of the army.
Mehee de la Touche has brought an action for de-
famation against the printer of the Journal Royal,
totuided on a publication in that paper of the 12th of
October List, of two orders of the 2d and 4th of
September, 1792, relative to the prison massacres.
The Austrian Government persists in the resolu-
tion adopted by Joseph 11. of not permitting in its
States the publication of any Pope's bull, or pastoral
letter from any foreign bishop, without its express
permission. The edict on this head has been renew-
ed, because the congregation della Riforma wished to
revive some ultramontane claims.
The Duke de Richelieu, the late Russian Governor
of Odessa, has arrived at Paris, and been introduced
to the King.
In its sitting of the 20th of October last, at Metz,
`the Council-General of the department of the Mo.
selie traced the following picture of the situation of
the department prier to the return of the Bourbons :
41 The Council still recollects with a sort of horror
the deplorable state to which this province is reduced
at the period of its last session, and the still greater
calamities which threatened it. It had with difficulty
furnished 6,450 men, when New levies, succeeded:
3,693 conscripts immediately followed the former,
without reckoning 1,400 national guards who were
marched td t 11:: Ithinc. Thus in a space of eighteen

•
.4111 )16.41"11....0.0

months, 10,513 men were torn from their families,
from the arts, and from agriculture. This was not
all : to . enormous contributions were added multi_ ,
plied requisitions of produce, horses, carriages, Scc.
44 The remains of our army soon fell back upon
the Sarre and the Moselle, which were inundated
with parks, convoys, civil officers and military, who
were to be lodged and fed, and who, at the approach
of the enemy, left us exhausted fields, and villages
infected by the pestilence which the soldiers communi-
cated. Every kind of scourge seemed to unite in
overwhelming our wretched province. The mor-
tality was dreadful, and the tables of 313 present
the afflicting details.
44 The births had always exceeded the burials by
two-fifths; but that year, on the contrary, they were
much fewer : there died 11,266 individuals, and
there were born only 10,255. This was a decrease of
births from fernier years to the amount of 3,500; and
an increase of deaths to the ainbunt of 2,200, which
makes a difference of 5,700 in loss of population,
, which thus began mpidly to decrease, because so
many sacrifices, losses, and misfortunes must at last
have reduced France to a sinking state, had not Pro-
t vidence saved her from the gulph into which she was
about to sink.

Gs The taxes had also so enormously increased, that
the consolidated duties, for instance, which in 1804
produced 72,000 francs, in IboB, 699,000, and in
1812, 2,200,000, rose in 1813 to 2,918,000 francs.
What an enormous progression ! In fi.:e, if we add
to the loss of population by death and decrease of
births, which, as we have seen, amounts to 5,700
souls, to the military levies of the same year, which
carried off 9,469 men, we shall have a total of
15,161 Souls. Thus our population was diminished
one twenty-fifth in a single year. The Gonna merely
retraces this'pieture of our miseries, that the inesti-
mable benefits may be more sensibly felt, which we
now enjoy under the government of a Prince, who
places all his ambition and his glory in constituting
the happiness of his people."
VIENNA, DECEMBER 8.

NOTE !RESENTED BY TIIE PLENIWITENTIARY OF TIIE
GRAND DUKE OF nADEN TO M. DE NIETTEIINICII.

The undersigned has not failed to communicate
to his Sovereign the answer which his Highness
Prince Metternich gave verbally, instead of in writ-
ing, to the note delivered to him on the sth of Oc-
tober. His Royal Highness was greatly surprised to
find reference made against him, to a treaty which,
with entire confidence in the promise given by the
Princes, he could not but consider as the palladium.
of his rights. The first article of the treaty concluded
at Frankfort, with the High Allies, and which gua-
rantees territories and rights to their respective pos-
sessors obliges the Grand Duke of Baden to comply
with such arrangements as shall be judged necessary
for the preservation of the independence of Germany.
But his Royal Highness cannot comprehend how five
German Princes could derive from this treaty the
right of being the sole legislators for the others ; how
the independence of Germany can consist in the de-
pendence of the latter; finally, how the articles in,
"question can enforce the recognition of this depen-
dence. The rank and dignity, the political and family
relations, the extent and population of the Grand
Duchy of Baden, hut, above all, the sacrifices which
it has made to deliver the country from a ft.Y.ign
yoke—sacrifices such as mother German Prince has
made, considering the geographical situation of the
country—all these reasons authorised the Grand Duke
to flatter himself with a very different prospect than
that of, after having broken foreign fetters, to wear,
perhaps, others that may be intended for him.
His Royal Highness the Grand Duke might re.
main a quiet spectator of passing events, with the
firm resolution not to renounce, in any case, what
honour and duty require of a Prince ; he might even
hope that neither the one nor the other would long
continue to be disregarded ; but the mysterious veil
which covers the affairs of Germany—the want of all
confidential communications, which alone are capable
of leading to the desired object—must necessarily
give birth to the idea that attempts will be made to
abridge considerably the sovereignty and independence
solemnly guaranteed.
4, How remote soever such an attempt may be from
the equitable and liberal views of the Allied Mo-
narchs,
who will never permit themselves to vio-
late solemn treaties, how easy soever one ought to
be respecting the inutility of such an attempt, yet
his Royal Highness, accustomed on all occasions,
to act with frankness, and desirous of leaving
no doubts of his intentions, has expressly ordered
the undersigned to declare solemnly, and without re-
serve, to his Highness Prince. Metternich, as the Mi-
nister who possesses the entire confidence of a great
Monarch, for,whom the House of Baden has always
felt the most profound respect, that the Grand Duke
of Baden will never consent to renounce the rank
which he has hitherto held among the first Princes of
Germany ; and in consequence he will not relinquish
to certain members of the Germanic Body the exclu-
sive rights belonging to that confederation to which
that Prince has as just a claim as the others, but will
invariably persist in asserting the sovereignty which
has been so solemnly guaranteed to him, and which
cannot be exercised without a participation in the
rights in question."