POSTSCRIPT.
SATURDAY NIGHT.
The intelligence from Paris this morning is important. The disco. tent of the people, in consequence of the scarcity of wheat and the high price of bread, has assumed a formidable aspect. We quote from the Times a summary of the news supplied by the French journals.
" The disturbances occasioned at Mans by the export of corn recommenced on the 16th, with redoubled violence. The authorities, it appears, had taken no efficacious measures to prevent their recurrence ; and when the disorders reached their height, they evinced an unpardonable weakness. The Mayor, M. Busse, permitted the populace to assemble in the market-place to divide among themselves a cart-load of wheat, after, however, paying its value into his hands.
The Moniteur Parisian of Wednesday evening states, that on the morning of the 16th, a hussar, having strayed behind the patrol to which he belonged, was assailed and ill-treated. by the crowd ; and that a troop of horse charged and dispersed the aggressors, and took three of them prisoners. The people imme- diately congregated in large numbers in the market-square and in the adjoin- ing streets, and erected barricades in different parts of the town. The first, placed near the barracks of the Gendarmes, was shortly abandoned, and levelled by the soldiers ; but the crowd succeeded in constructing a strong one near the Pont Royal, with the materials of some works going on at the river-side, and intrenched themselves behind it. The King's attorney and his substitute sum- moned them to disperse ; but were received with yaks of stones, and com- pelled to retire, the rioters declaring that they would hold out until their friends who had been taken into custody should be liberated. The troops of the garrison were not employed to carry the barricade. At four o'clock, the Com- mander of the National Guard presented himself at the head of thirty men ; and after some parleying, promised, upon his own responsibility, the release of the prisoners. The rioters then left the barricade, followed the officer to the Palace of Justice, where the Municipal Council was sitting, and the prisoners were actually liberated on an order of that Council. The mob, emboldened by this success, traversed the streets, kelthia the Hussars with stones wherever they met them, and towards six o (dodo. beo.. -c °Ws ceen
four and five 1 -• persons marcneu out of town for the purpose of destroy- mg a mill worked by machinery at Buisne ; but, finding there the Prefect and the Commander of the National Guard, with a detachment of troops of the line and armed citizens, they were unable to accomplish their object.
" Whilst these scenes of riot were ping on at Maus, similar disturbances were taking place at Mainers, in the same department. Upwards of two hun- dred workmen collected ilk the market, opposed the removal of the corn pur- chased by the millers of the neighbourhood, and then proceeded to the houses of all the bakers and innkeepers of the town, and obliged them to scud all their corn to the public stores. The Ituthorities of Mainers, having wily a few Gendarmes at their disposal, vainly endeavoured to calm the mutineers by per- suasion.
"The Ministry, alarmed at these disturbances, and dreading the conse- quences of their impunity, held an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday, to deliberate on the expediency of dismissing from office the Prefect of the de- partment, M. Bruley Desvaranncs, M. Besse, the Mayor, and the King's At- torney, and of dissolving the Municipal Council and National Guard of Maus. It appears, however, that they only determined on sacrificing the Pre- fect and the King's Attorney, and that N. Basso, who, according to a letter published by the -Cr:furrier Irancais, behaved with the greatest cowardice on the occasion, will escape unpunished. This individual has several times appeared before our readers : he was surprised two years ago in a clandestine gaming- house with a certain English Lord, and because of his being a Deputy, and supporting the Mole Administration, was suffered to continue in his municipal functions.
" The Moniteur of Thursday contains two royal ordinances, in virtue of which al. Bruley Desvarannes was superseded in his post of Prefect of the Sarthe by M. Mancel, former Prefect of the Vienne, and M. Boursier, the hug's Attorney at Maus, was replaced by M. Massiennc, King's Attorney at L'Oricnt. " Time Moniteur then publishes the following paragraph, in justification of the measures adopted towards these two functionaries= Serious disturbances,' it says, ' have taken place in the department of the Sarthe. The free circula- tion of corn was there interrupted by violence. Riotous assemblages of the people stopped waggons laden with wheat ; and other anarchical acts disturbed the tranquillity of Mans, and alarmed the peaceable citizens. The Govern- ment has ordered a military force, sufficient to suppress these disorders, and to command respect for the laws, to march upon that department. It directed, moreover, its attention to the conduct of the authorities, who have been guilty of egregious faults in consenting to the forced sale of the corn contained in the waggons violently stopped by the rioters, and particularly in liberating, without observing the forms of justice, the prisoners arrested on account of their participation in the first acts of vio- lence, and whose release was demanded by a seditious band. The Government felt it its ditty to name successors in the room of the Prefect and the King's Attorney, without attending to the anterior titles of those two functionaries. M. Mancel, who was in Pans on leave of absence, left immediately for Mans; and the Minister of Justice has directed that the Royal Court of Angers should forthwith commence a prosecution against the authors of these dis- turbances." On Wednesday, placards, containing the most violent threats, to be executed should the price of bread not be lowered towards the close of the month, were posted in the market of St. Germain, in Paris.
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