NEWS OF TAR WEEK.
THE parti pretre in France, with the sagacity which springs of terror, have discovered the drift of La France, Rome et ?Italie. It is a deadly blow, aimed nominally at the temporal power, but in reality at themselves. After cackling over it for a week in all the Legitimist salons of Paris, they have found a champion as violent and irrational as themselves. The Bishop of Poitiers, strong in his ecclesiastical immunities, has written a pamphlet in reply to the Emperor, and calling it a charge, ordered it to be read in every parish of his diocese. After asserting that the Roman See is the keystone of European .order, he draws an elaborate comparison between the Emperor and Pontius Pilate. The pamphlet he regards as the "washing of the hands" from innocent blood; and in language which but for its fero- city would be eloquent, he tells the Emperor that for eighteen hun- dred years the name of Pilate has been held accursed. The Emperor, it is said, is strongly irritated by this formal denunciation, and has 'referred the conduct of the Bishop to the Council of State. The address, circulated throughout a diocese, will, it is imagined, rouse the peasantry into fury, while the Bishop is almost beyond the direct action of the Executive. We cannot but think, how- ever, that the importance of the blow is unconsciously exaggerated -by the enemies of the Emperor. The Church of France with all its hardihood has never yet won a battle against the State. The people, however devoted to the cures, still distrust the higher clergy—still hold to the famous sentence of the Encyclo- pedists as their secret aspiration. Paris will not struggle for the parti pretre, and it is Paris and not Poitiers which gives the tone to France. The Bishop of Orleans has also protested against M. de In Guerronnieres conclusions, but his pamphlet, though ably written, has had little effect upon the public. Even in the Legislature, the faction supposed to be so strong has been defeated. The address of the Senate is as servile as if the right of amendment had never been conceded. It is a mere re-echo of the Emperor's Speech, and though urging Italy- to "recollect that Catholicism has entrusted to her the Head of the Church," still trusts in the Emperor's "tutelary and in- defatigable hand." The Senate "does not hesitate to give its full adhesion to all the acts of .this frank, moderate, and persevering . policy." The address of the Corps Legislatif is even more open in its approval, and the Emperor May be , said to have received carte blanche for his policy in Italy. He is reported, however, to be dis- satisfied with the want of clearness, in the addresses, and the public complains bitterly of the same defect. The Liberals are annoyed be- cause the temporal power is not decisively condemned, while the parti pretre hoped for a clause imploring the Emperor to remain in Rome. It is scarcely probable that Louis Napoleon, who has defied the Revolation, will quail before the priesthoe'd ; his real danger is from the political feeling of Frenchmen, who are almost unanimous against the unity of Italy, an arrangement they regard, with justice, as dan- gerous to their supremacy in the Mediterranean. There is a curious fear, too prevalent in France, of the power of Italy as a nationality —a fear the elder Napoleon, both on the throne and at St. Helena, repeatedly expressed. It is not impossible that the Emperor's vacil- lation in Italian politics is produced as much by the discordance between his own views and those of France, as by any absence of integrity of purpose.
Amidst all complications the work of improving the military strength of France goes steadily forward. A new cannon has re- cently been invented which is said to surpass any yet tried. It is a mortar fitted with a long tube, made of open rings of cast iron, and rifled by- means of projecting spiral rods, shaped in triangular prisms. The tube can be lengthened or shortened at pleasure, and the largest sized gam can be taken to pieces and carried by horses or mules. The gun will not heat, and the weight of the piece, made as it is of open-work, will be comparatively light. It is weight which is said to impair the usefulness of the new Pied- montese or Cavalli guns. Their fire is irresistible, but from the number of iron plates with which they are defended it takes many hours to fix them in position, a defect which would be fatal on the field.
The list of improvements to be made in Paris this year has been published, and must make Londoners sigh for a Prefect of the Thames. We can mention only the more important. The Boule- vard de Sebastopol is to be completed, the Boulevard de St. Germain opened, and the Boulevards Malesherbes-Beaujon, de l'Alma, du Roi de Rome, and de PEmpereur to be finished. A new square is to be laid out opposite the church ef , St. Nicolas-des-Champs, the Palais de Justice to be enlarged, the cathedral of Notre-Dame to be repaired, the palace of the Louvre redecorated, new termini, theatres, and churches erected in different quarters of the city. In short, the process of beautifying Paris, which commenced with the Emperor's accession, is to be steadily continued, and the city to be made archi- tecturally as well as politically the capital of Western Europe. The Emperor might profitably expend a little of his superabundant energy in increasing and improving some of the towns in the interior. Frew has fewer cities worthy of the name than any country in Europe of its site. Prince Napoleon, who had intended to visit Italy, has been pre- vented by the Emperor., The prince, it is said, is bitterly opposed to the temporal government of the Pape, and somewhat over-frank in the expression of his opinions.
