It does not appear from the French news of this
week that Louis PHILIP is getting rid of any portion of his unpopularity, or that the Ministry is gaining ground in public opinion. The only attempt at conciliation is an announcement that the grand entertainments at Versailles are to be defrayed out of the King's privy purse ; but the Parisian mechanics, who are drawing their Toney out of the savings banks, and suffering from want of employmentâthe weavers at Lyons and St. Etienne, who are starvingâand the labourers in the vineyards of the South, to whom the winter is always a season of distressâall cry out against slavish expenditure in feasting and tomfoolery la Louts Qua- torze, in a period of general suffering. Besides, the Parisians have no relish for fetes at Versailles.
The opposition to the " apanage" of the Duke DE NEMOURS is as violent as ever. The Ministers urge Louis PHILIP to take a grant of money ; but the King insists upon an estate being settled upon his son. MOLE and GUIZOT have quarrelled, each laying upon the other the blame of Ministerial unpopularity : With difficulty a temporary reconciliation has been effected by the King. Marshal CLAUSEL has published his defence in a pamphlet : it seriously inculpates the Doctrinaires, whom he accuses of a design to abandon Algiers and defeat every attempt to consolidate the French power in Africa. The Archbishop of Paris has been creating quite a disturbance. His palace and gardens, in the neighbourhood of the Hotel Dieu, were ravaged and ruined by a mob in 1831: it is proposed to Convert these gardens into places of recreation and exercise for the invalids in the Had Dieu, which is a large hospital, and to provide a new palace and gardens for the Archbishop. But his Reverence declares that such a proceeding would be sacrilegious; and he has protested against it in a violent pastoral letter, ad- dressed to his clergy, maintaining in opposition to the law, that The State has no right to interfere with Church property, of Which he is the sole guardian. A decree condemning this letter and its doctrines was adopted by the Council of State. at the in- stance of PERSIL; but PERSIL thought fit to delay the publication Of the decree, in consequence of the remonstrances of the Court, and the next day, in the Council of State, declared that the decree went too far. A stormy discussion ensued; and. G ut ZOT, with the Doctrinaires, said that PERSIL was under female and bigot influence. The result of the affair, however, is that PERSIL published his own decree in the Moniteur, and is backed by the King. selle Everybody sees that this Ministry cannot last, and that the march of affairs in France tends to a dangerous crisis.