FRANCE.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 263, 27 April 1860, Page 4

FRANCE.

The Journal dcs Debuts has announced, on the authority of the Corriere Mercantile di, Genoa, that the French army, having lost 6000 men in the last six months,,is about to receive reinforcements amounting to 15,000 men. It is reported at Paris that the orders for the French army to be ready to march at a moment's notice, of which we had several reports of late, have been countermanded. Admiral Romain Desfosses lately.reviewed at Toulon several companies of marines to be employed in landing on an enemy's coast. Each man is provided with a six-barrelled revolver, a bag of grenades, and a hatchet. He carries as a crossbelt a rope ladder six feet long, ..and round j his waist a cord, having at its extremity a grappling iron with four prongs. ■ This grappling iron will attach itself to the least projecting object of a rampart, and will enable a trained ■jnan to scale the highest wall without difficulty. Orders from the Minister of Marine have been received simultaneously by the naval authorities at Toulon, Brest, and Cherbourg to prepare several vessels for sea. The reason assigned for these orders is that the Emperor has determined to send reinforcements as soon as possible to General Montauban, commander-in-chief of the troops which sailed^from France for China. , ■ ~;' The French legislative session has been postponed from the 23rd of February till the Ist of j March. This postponement is supposed to have ; reference to the debates in the British Parliament, for by that time the fate of the budget, of the commercial treaty with France, and, perhaps, of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet will be know. The Moniteur, of February 4th, published a report of the "Minister of War, Marshal Randon, announcing that, in conformity with the intentions of the Emperor, he would submit a project of law to the Legislative body, reducing the contingent of the class 1859 from 140,000 to , 100,000 men. On Sunday, February sth, in all tbe churches of Paris, the priests, followiug tbe orders of the Archbishop of Paris, read the last encyclical letter of the Pope. The archbishop has also ordered public prayers to be offered until Easter, in order " that his Holiness may overcome the tribulations and persecutions to which the church is now exposed." These last words are taken from the mandement, which was also read from the pulpit.