FRANCE.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 360, 5 April 1861, Page 4

FRANCE.

M. Gamier Pages has been for some time engaged on a history of the revolution of 1848, not only in France, but in Europe. The work will be rather voluminous, and the first portion is expected to appear next month. The position held by the author under the late Republic will naturally give interest to the publication, and M. Gamier PageV known ability, and the aid which it is understood he has derived from his former colleagues and others, will increase the attraction. Assuredly we have not yet a satisfactory history of the period in question, and it is to be hoped that this author will supply the want.

A fearful accident occurred on Wednesday! last, between Sizy-sur-Ourcq and Ocqkierre. A widow named Vilcocq and her j granddaughter, aged eighteen, were riding in a small covered cart, driven by a relative, when it was suddenly discovered that the clothes of the elder female were on fire. The two rose up suddenly, and the flames immediately burst forth. The driver jumped out of the cart and helped his relatives to descend. There was no one within sight or hearing, and a dreadful scene now tcok place; the man rolled the poor women on the ground, and into a ditch by the side of the load; he tried to tear up the earth with his nails in order to throw it upon them, but everything was frozen as hard, as a stone, and all his efforts were unsuccessful. The agonies of the unfortunate creatures must have been frightful, and in ten minutes there remained nothing but two fearfully disfigured corpses; the man's hands were much burned through his desperate efforts to be of some use to his relatives,; and the terrible scene he had passed through had almost taken away his reason* The accident happened through a footwarmer filled with lighted charcoal; this was Of iron, and the rapid progress of the cart through the frosty air had made it red hot, and the fire had been communicated to some hemp and other combustible matters which were at the bottom of the cart.

A great number of Am rican residents have quitted Paris to return to their own country, where the apprehended consequences of the threatened separation may be such as to oblige all who have property in the country to look well after their own affairs. The departuie of so many natives of the United States will be felt by the

tradespeople, of whom there were large and liberal purchasers, for Cousin Jonathan spends his money freely. The flight is said to be wholesale; but making allowance for exaggeration, the truth is that a good many have suddenly departed, in a sort of panic, at the crisis which has arisen at home.

The Correspondent of the Siecle furnishes the following curious information as to the reactionary movement in the Abruzzi:—lt is well known that the insurrection in the Abruzzi is chiefly kept up by a certain Colonel Lagrange, who is represented to be a Frenchman, but he is not so; his name is not Lagrange, but Klitsche. He was born at Berlin, and his father was a Prussian, his mother being French. This chief of a band of pillagers was for twelve or fifteen years in the service, of the Pope, who made him a lieutenant-colonel; he then called himself Klitsche de Lagrange. Having obtained a pension from Pius IX. for his services, he went to Naples, and was received with favor by Ferdinand 11. He then became the correspondent of the Augsburg Gazette, but as his salary as journalist and his pension from the Pope were not sufficient to maintain his large family, he received, besides, a subvention from the Neapolitan Government for services more or less avowed. Thus, when the King wanted to make a communication, to Europe without assuming the responsibility of it, M. Klitsche undertook to send it to the Auasburg Gazette. He continued to act in the same way under Francis 11., who continued his allowance. Various missions were besides confided to this gentleman by the two kings, and among them was a secret one to Rome. During the last eight months of the Bouibonian reign M. Klitsche resided at Caserta. He lelt the kingdom after the departure of Francis for Gaeta, but witti the project of soon returning to play the horrible part he is now filling. In person he is tall and goodlooking; but he squints. Though he has made fewer campaigns than he pretends, he possesses military talents. He has six daughters, who, in stature and manners, are veritable grenadiers. One of them lor some time gave lessons in fencing at Naples, and had numerous pupils among the young nobility. He has also a son, who was for a long period a non-commissioned officer of cavalry in the Bourbonian army, but was made an officer by Francis 11., in consideration of the services of his father.

An Article in the Revne Contcmpomine, from the pen of H. Herve" f draws a comparison between the.services rendered to Italy by Count Cavour and Mazzini in the following terms:_ — •« M. Mazzini has done it all; so he tells us' openly. The present Government of Italy wanted to do nothing, has done nothing, and prepared nothing. The war of Lombardy is the exclusive work of the Emperor of the French ; the expedition of Garibaldi was executed without the assistance of Count Cavour's Cabinet, and positively against its will; the Piedmontese agents placed every possible obstacle in the way of the celebrated Generals landing on the Neapolitan territory. Nor did the Cabinet even dare to accept the annexations; it was the party of action-—that is, M. Mazzini—which forced it to do so. Now, if this be the truth, we must confess that his letter is an admirable defence of the Piedmontese Cabinet, and every opportunely comes to clear it of certain charges which have been; brought against it in the course of the last twelvemonth. If Count Cavour did not provoke the war of 1859, if be did all in his power to prevent the somewhat irregular expedition of General Garibaldi against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies; if he virtuously repelled the annexations until they were forced upon him—then he is no longer the Machiavel he has been described ; then he is a peaceable citizen who, much against his will has been forced to accept, in favor of his country, the presents which fortune and M. Mazzini thrust upon him. But M. Mazzini takes too many sins upon himself; he ought to leave the responsibility thereof to the Ministers who have profited by them. Perhaps, also, M. Mazzini is mistaken when he thinks himself the chief of a party of action; his party is precisely the one that has been most inactive \ for the last ten years. M. Mazzini is a clever writer; we admire his literary talen;s, but we do not so clearly perceive the results of his political combinations. The enemies of Italian unity know very, well that had they! only to deal with the feverish activity of M. Mazzini, and had not the inoolent Count Cavour organised the Piedmontese finances, made his country join in" the Crimean war, sat at the Congress of Paris, and prepared the rupture in 1859 between France and Austria, the Sovereigns now dethroned would still reign quietly at Naples, Florence, and Modena." • Ac all times of our military history, atten'ion has been paid to the important question of the organisation of a reserve. Numerous attempts have been made since 1818;, but without success. All the proposed systems, though sometimes even carried iuto execution Tor a time, were successively abandoned, and the problem still awaits a solution. This void in our military organization will be filled up by the plan of assembling at the depots of instruction a portibn of each class^—a plan to be brought into operation on the Ist February next. According to the scheme referred to, one portion only of the annual contingent will.go to fill up the blanks produced in the different corps of troops by discharges, illness, or any other accidental cause. The second portion will be assembled at the depots of the corps for three months the first year, for two months the second, and for a month only in the third; so as to receive an outline of instruction, and then be dismissed to their homes for the rest of the time by furloughs, and so restored to civil life. The young soldiers of the second portion of the contingent destined to the infantry will be assembled to the extent possible in the chief town of each department. Those destined for the calvalry or the artillery will be grouped at the nearest cavalry garrisons or artillery schools. If this system be compared with that which has been in practice from the commencement of the empire, which consists in taking the whole contingent every year, and in sending home a part after two or three years' stay with the regiment, it will be admitted that the new system is a real relief to the population. The facility of thus rapidly augmenting the effective of the army in case of necessity allows of exacting from the men called on to serve their country but a few months only of their time ifor a trifling number of years, and of thus restoring to agriculture and to manufactures, the labor of which they may be deficient, and which the army would recover, accustomed to the use of the musket, it circumstances arose to require it. - : ■ ■ ' ■■ ; '.' ; ■ -

If we are to credit a private despatch, the Ottoman Porte has paid France and England the compensation due for the currences of Djeddah. It was also said at Constantinople that Austria had demanded the arrest of the Hungarian emissaries,scattered thrpugti Turkey, and that General Klapka was in the Danubian Principalities. ..'.;; ; v ■. _ .. According to the same despatch, the European Commission had been received with menaces at Damascus. Lord Dufferin, the English Commissioner, had interrogated a vast number of the inhabitants of, the! city, and they had all declared that the Christians were in imminent danger. The lateet intelligence received from Scutarij in Albania, would make us look for a conflict on the Montenegrin frontier as imminent. In consequence of an incursion made by a number of Ottoman subjects into Montenegrin territory, Prince Nicholas had in fact assembled a body of 2000 men, at the head of whom he proposed to attack the fortress of Spouz. But we learn that, thanks to the efforts of the Consuls resident at Scutari, moderate councils have prevailed and the Prince has consented to halt his troops.