There is at present, if report be true, an affecting
case of illness in the Royal Family of France; the Princess Mary, Dutchess of Wur- temberg, (that highly gifted artist !) having been in a declining state ever since the murderous attempt of Fieschi upon her father's life.— Times Paris Correspondent.
A mortal strife prevails at present in Paris between the partisans of those celebrated dancers Fanny Elssler and Taglioni. The Taglioni party do not wish that the presence of Fanny Elssler should efface the recollection of Taglioni ; and the Elssler party do not see why their charming dancer should not profit of that absence to take the lead in the ballet. War has been declared in all the playgoing societies ; and the Swiss of the opera, the paid clacqueurs, have been retained at both sides. On Tuesday night a pitched battle took place, in the pit of the Academie Royale, between the main bodies of those armies. Fanny Elssler appeared for the first time as Ondine in the Fille du Danube. She had previously achieved wonders in Taglioni's favourite part of the Sylphide ; and it was naturally feared by the friends of the latter, that if she succeeded to the same extent in Ondine, that their goddess might be banished for ever to Siberia—or to England, which is pretty much the same thing to your true Parisians. Orders were therefore issued from headquarters to hiss, and to deride, and to crush, by a vigorous effort, the first attempt. The Elsslerites were equally on the alert; and their commander-in-chief made admirable arrangements. He placed in the front rank a compact body of clacqueurs, whose hands were as iron ; and he distributed in the centre of the pit an active corps of light troops, who were to unite at a given signal, and over- power all attempts at disapprobation. The ballet began, and Fanny Elssler appeared. Her first pas was received in silence ; the second scene was vehemently applauded on the one side and strongly reproved on the other. At length, when the Elsslerites were so bold as to call fbr an encore in the last act, the Taglionites rose in a body and poured in a volley of hisses, which disconcerted the fair object of the strife, and created a terrific tumult in the house. In general, the disorderly have an advantage in these squabbles, for respectable persons will re- tire rather than engage in such a disreputable exhibition ; but on this Occasion the boxes and stalls took part with Fanny Elssler, and cries of " Turn out the paid assassins !" were heard from every side. Thus unexpectedly reinforced, the clacqueurs of her party pursued their tri- umph. They pummelled without mercy some of the refractory of the opposite party ; and the Police coming to their aid, the most prominent of the unfortunate Taglionites were hauled out of the pit by main force. Fanny Elssler remains mistress of the field, or rather the flood, and she is now the Daughter of the Danube.—Morning Post. It is said that the husband of a distinguished Italian singer has set out on a journey to the North. He does not travel alone, a beautiful young friend of his lady is said to have accompanied him—Post. The French Cabinet have just obtained another victory in the dirty system of petty corruption they carry on against the independence of men of literary and political ability. Dr. Lerminier, known by his works on philosophy and political essays of hitherto very revolutionary tendency, has suddenly turned round, on obtaining a place under Government, and now heaps extravagant praise upon the very men he had been holding up as enernies and traitors to his country. M. Buloz, the editor of the Revue des Deur Mondes, in which Dr. Lerminier principally writes, has also just been provided with a lucrative sinecure, with the same view of securing the future and rewarding the past ser- vices of that political publication.—Letter from Paris, in the Times.
A man named Roger was condemned, a few days since, to five years' imprisonment, with ten years' surveillance and deprivation of civil rights, for criminal attempts upon the two daughters of his wife by a former husband, who were thirteen and nine years of age respectively. It came out in evidence that the criminality of the husband had been all along known to the wife, who did nothing to prevent it.
The recent arrest of a merchant in Dantzic afforded a striking proof of the spirit of espionage of the Paris police. A notice from Paris to Dantzic pointed out a room in a house in Dantzic in which there was a projecting chimney, and behind it a vacant space between that and the wall ; here there was, under the floor, a place through which the emissaries escaped. This was found to be really the case : a recep- tacle, unknown even to the master of the house him-elf, was found under the flour, just large enough for two persons to creep into into it, and crouch together on a stone seat that was in it. The whole was covered with waxed silk, and had concealed the emissaries and their dangerous papers.—Leipsic Allgemeine Zeitung.
A Carlist correspondence, quoted by the Sentinelle des Pyrinies gives a curious explanation of the motive which led to the Princess de
Beira's arrival in the insurgent provinces. It appears that Father Cyrille, on joining Don Carlos, found him exposed to the artifices of a young and handsome female ; to counteract whose ascendancy, which he feared might destroy his own influence, he wrote several pressing letters to the Princess de Beira, urging the necessity of her immediate presence. The Princess immediately resolved to make the journey, but first communicated her intention to Don Carlos ; who made every effort to dissuade her from carrying it into effect, and even gave formal orders to his agents abroad to prevent her from setting out. The Princess, however, was not to be baffled, and has by this time reached her destil ation.
An incident, which will throw, at least for some time, cold water over the coquetting between the King of the Barricades and the Auto-
crat of the Hussies, is the approaching marriage of the Duke de Leuch- tenberg ;(the only remaining sun of Eugene Beinfflarriois) with the Princess Alexandrina, eldest daughter of the Emperor.— Times Paris Correspondent.
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