The Committee on the Fortifications Bill, in the conclusion it
has come to, assimilates Paris, as far as military servitudes are concerned, to a fortified place of the third class ; and it is in consequence of this that the zone has been fixed at 250 metres in width. In places of the first and second class the width is 500 metres. General Bugeaud, it is now said, intends to wait until after the discussion on the hill before he departs for Africa.
The Abbii de Lamennais has surrendered himself a prisoner at Ste. Pelagic; where he will undergo the year's imprisonment to which he has been sentenced by the Court of Assizes.
The Journal des Dibats of Wednesday calculates the amount of French commercial interests which are engaged in the East, including Egypt ; and shows how extremely small and unimportant those are (not exceeding forty-three millions of francs) compared with the general in- terests of the commerce of France. It therefore thinks that, from com- mercial reasons as from others, France ought not to persist in directing her ambition towards Asia, whilst Africa is at her door, affording not only commercial advantages, but that supplement of territory and popu- lation which she so much needs in order to compete with the great ex- tent and population of the Russian and English empires. With two hundred leagues of the African coast on the Mediterranean, with Sene- gambia on the West of that continent, and a part in Madagascar on the East, France might turn Africa to account as well as French Guiana.
The Times of this morning, alluding to a semi-official article which
appeared in yesterday's Chronicle respecting the "armed peace" of France and its probability of ending in war, observes-
" A note is well understood to have been sent by Lord Palmerston to M.. Guizot, which, though on the face of it of a most respectful and conciliatory nature, and evincing the most delicate consideration for the difficulties which surround that statesman, requesting also that France would join with the other Powers in regulating what is still unsettled, does nevertheless contain a proposal that France should disarm, or rather discontinue the armaments now in pro- gress—viz. those of which the minimum scale has been fixed at half a million of soldiers. Well, M. Guizot's answer is what may be termed a negative raisonnie to the latter portion of Lord Palmerston's demand. hi. Guizot will not leave to the four Allied Powers a final decision of those 'points on which France openly and in principle differed from them. He announces that France will remain armed as long as her own sense of her own interests and safety requires it, and that public opinion throughout that country will not admit of any other course.' But M. Guizot 'will not disarm '; and therefore, according to the dictum of Downing Street, the peace of M. Guizot is but an idle promise.' In other words there will be no reace at all."
Previous page
