New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1858-11-11
curious editorial Adventure.

The last English mails give an account of a French
officer threatening to pistol the editor of penny
paper in Newcastleon-Tyne. The affair created q
great sensation in the town. and has even elected an
article from the London Times, which says hee.
t0ring swashbuCer is so nearly an extinct creature
in England that we should all feel the same dis.
agreeable surprise but nexpressibe curiosity at find,
ing ourselves in proximity with Sir LuCius 0fTTip-
ger, or Hector MeIurk, as we should at finding al
tchthyosaurus rubbing himself against our unpro
tected skin while taking quiet swim off the beach
at Brighton
The story however, as narrated in the English
journals like all stOres has two sides to it, and its
iudicrous features render it rather ridiculous than
terrific. It seems that municipal politics ran high in
the town, and the Count de Maricourt, the French
Consul, was accused OF interfering in the election
and giving his active support to Mr.. VIM. Dunn a
candidate for the Ward in which the French Consul
resided. IN making this charge, the Northern Daily
Express referred to the Consul in the following often
sve terms The agent in this country of that arch.
traitor and destroyer of his Countrys liberty Louis
Napoleon mean the French Consult The next
day the Express had leading editorial article upon
the Consul which certainly equals in cOarseness and
magnlty anything we have ever seen on this side of
the water. Besides being filled with abuse of the
Emperor, it has an nuendo to the private charac-
ter OF the Count de MdriCOurt which could not have
found its way into any respectable American paper
1t also intimates that he is impostor. 1t saws
Now, there are two kinds of French Counts II A
professor of anything, from language to egerde.
main, comes from America, the chances are that he
IS Major, or something between that and General
Americans affecting the military. IT, on the other
hand, yonr necr0manCer or dancing master comes
from France, he is pretty certain to he a Count
There are, no doubt real Counts as well as ninch.
beck; but whether NJ de Maricourt belongs to the
one caEs or the other, whether his atines connect
him with the Count Montalembert the most element
Frenchman alive, or with the Count BorTomeo The
most impudent impostor on The treadmill-let him
be one or inc other, he is equally precluded from
interfering with the course Of an English eection7
The individual thus grossly assailed is admitted by
the Times to be !" an extremely modest and retiring
gentleman" and it may be added, denies that he
interered in any way in the election.
On the day on which the assault upon the French
Consul was published, according to the Express
editor, who publishes an account of the affair." the
following card, written by the GOnsul's son was left
ut the Express office, after the editor had departed
for the night.
:" F, de Marieourt 18th Dragons, will do the
editor the honor to wait for him at the smoking room
Of the Exchange Hotel to morrow morning at
O'CLOCK II the editor does not come he will have the
pleasure to chastise him at his own house"
This polite note did not reach the editor till the
next night and not in fact till after r. de Marcourt
had reached him himself but, on that occasion, the
pleasure promised by the courteous Frenchman
does not seem to have been reciprocal, From the
editors narrative, WeeXttact the following account Of
the interview:
Sitting in my own house in Rayensworth terrace
Gateshead, and engaged writing l heard knock at
the doOra few minutes past , O'Clock, The servant
openedit, and, without waiting to be announced a
person. apparently twenty-five or twentysix years of
age, dashed in with a bound saluting me interroga
lively, "Monsieur le redacteur du Northern Chron-
ieeW corrected him, and said Express-on which
he broke out in torrent OF French artienating SO
yehemently and fast that did not catch a single
word he said and could only suppose my visitor Mas
lunatic from the neighboriug asylum at Bensham.
At last caught the word Maricourt and asked "are
you from the Count de Maricourt z" He answered
IN the affirmative. By this time had risen and he
again commenced vehement yolley of French, of
which the only words caught were too few to enable
me to conjecture his meaning He observed that
did not understand him, and-enuncating slowly, as
If feeling Tor his words-"I speak English, You in
suit Count de Marieourt-I kill you.-pulling out of
his pocket q small pistol cooking it al the same
moment, and bringing it round, with his finger on
the trigger to within few inches of my own head
He exclaimed Don't scream. Don't make noise.
You're dead man." replied II am not going to
scream put down your pistol, and tell me what you
WANT
want 10 kill you, = he said
heren
- am ealm--I am calm, he repeated as lastas he
possibly could his lips and the muscles of his cheeks
qaiyering conYulsiyely; am calm, calm, calm,