15 JANUARY 1870, Page 1

The event at Auteuil is the more untoward because the

new Ministry was reaping golden opinions. It had superseded M. Haussmann and some twenty " devoted " Prefects, had warned the remainder not to interfere in elections, had prepared a bill to modify the exemption of officials from the law, bad suggested a reduction of one-fourth in the conscription, had announced that it should adhere to the treaty with England as essential to peace, had sanctioned the sale of all newspapers on the Boulevards, had withdrawn the prohibition on foreign journals, and had made frank and intelligible answers to Parliamentary questions. A regime of liberty was obviously commencing, when suddenly the Ministry found itself obliged to seize a paper, to prosecute its editor, to call out troops, and to disperse a crowd which did not move till the summons had been twice read. It has still to rein in Paris with a strong hand, and may yet be obliged to use as well as call out the garrison. It looks very much as if that " run" in events which we call luck, and which cannot be luck, whether the world is governed by Providence or by law, were telling heavily against the Buonapartes.