fnrtigu and Culautal.

FRANCE. —The Usurpation is now able to assume the guise of national ratification. The official report says that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte has received 7,439,219 of the national votes, and that only 640,737 French- men have protested against the unprincipled coup d'etat. Early in the week, a decree announced, that at half-pait eight in the afternoon of the 31st December, "the President of the Republic" would

receive at the Palace of the Ups& from the Consultative Commission, the proces-verbal of the result of the national vote on the plebiscite. At ten o'clock in the morning of the 1st January, should be fired at the Tuvefides ten salutes for every million of affirmative votes. At half-past eleven on the same day, a Te Deum for the success of the coup d'etat would be performed at the Cathedral of Netre Dame, in presence of the President of the Republic. After the Te Deum, at half-past one o'clock, "the official receptions of the constituted bodies, the delegates from the departments and arrondissements, the civil and military authorities, would take place, in the Palace of the Tuileries."

The significance, to French ears, of the announcement that M. Bona- parte would receive the congratulations of the constituted authorities in the Palace of the Tuileries, is well shown to the English reader by the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle- " No Revolutionary or even Republican Government has hitherto ventured upon that significant step. During the Revolution of 1793, the Tuileries was left vacant ; and the successive Republican Governments, down to the Directory, contented themselves with apartments in the Palace of the Lux- embourg. After the Revolution of 1848, the Provisional Government never felt itself sufficiently secure to leave the Hetet de Ville; but the Executive Commission followed the example of its predecessors in the first Revolution, and took possession of the Luxembourg. The present Republic, though pro- claimed by acclamation by the Representatives of the People, did not ven- ture to fix upon the Tuileries as the residence of its President; it modestly installed him at the smaller Palace of the Elysee. Even the Great Napo- leon himself was ridiculed and laughed at when, as First Consul, he sepa- rated himself from his colleagues, and ensconced himself at the Tuileries; and it was only when he became Emperor that people became reconciled to seeing him in the ancient residence of the Kings of France." At the appointed hour on Wednesday evening, the Consultative Com- mission proceeded to the Elysee, to present to Id. Bonaparte the result of "the votes given in France and Algeria, and by the army and navy, on the plebiscite of December 2." The President received them surrounded by his Ministers and aides-de-camp. M. Baroche, the Vice-President of the Commission, announced the numbers of the votes, as above quoted ; and then addressed " Monsieur le President " with a speech, assuring him that France confided in his courage, his elevated good sense, and his love : no government ever rested on a basis more extensive, or had an origin more legitimate and worthy of the respect of nations.

M. le President replied in the following terms.

"Gentlemen—France has responded to the loyal appeal which I made to her. She has comprehended that I departed from legality only to return to right. Upwards of seven millions of votes have just absolved me, by justi- fying an act which had no other object than to save France, and perhaps Europe, from years of trouble and anarchy. (Loud assent.) I thank you for having effectually shown to what an extent that manifestation is national and spontaneous. If I congratulate myself on this immense adhesion, it is not from pride, but because it gives me the force toe peak and act as becomes the head of a great nation like ours. (Loud cries of " Bravo !") " I understand all the grandeur of my new mission, and I do not deceive myself as to its difficulties. But with an upright heart, with the cooperation of all right-minded men, who, like you, will assist me with their intelligence and support me with their patriotism, with the tried devotedness of our va- liant army, and with the protection which I shall tomorrow solemnly beseech Heaven to grant me, I hope to render myself worthy of the confidence which the people continue to place in me. I hope to secure the destinies of France by founding institutions which respond at the same time to the democratic in- stiucts of the nation and to the universally expressed desire to have hence- forth a strong and respected government ; in fact, to give satisfaction to the exigencies of the moment, by creating a system which reconstitutes au- thority without wounding the feeling of equality, and, without closing any path of improvement, is to lay the foundations of the only edifice capable of .supporting a wise and beneficent liberty."

Cries of " Vivo Napoleon !" " Vivo le President I" were raised. The members of the Commission pressed round M. Bonaparte to offer him their congratulations. A conversation followed, which lasted about twenty minutes. The Corps Diplomatique were then presented by the Apostolic Nuncio ; but no speeches were made. The Archbishop of Paris and his clergy offered their congratulations and good wishes for the success of the high mission God had confided to the President. M. Bonaparte returned thanks in a short speech. The two Consistories of the Reformed Church, one of the Church of the Confession of Augsburg, and the Central Israelite Consistory, presented their congratulations. The Moniteur of Thursday morning published the result of the poll, with a decree that a similar publication should be made in every com- mune of the Republic.

Immediately afterwards followed a decree to this effect—

"The President, considering that the French Republic, in its new form sanctioned by the salvia of the people, may adopt without umbrage the souvenirs of the Empire afid the symbols which recall the glory of that period ; and considering that the national flag should no longer be deprived of the renowned emblem which conducted our soldiers to victory in a hundred bat- tles, decrees-1, that the French eagle shall be reestablished on the colours of the army ; and 2, that it is also reestablished on the cross of the Legion of Honour."

Apropos of the "national" vote on the plebiscite, and the authority which it is alleged to give M. Bonaparte to frame a new constitution, a comparison has been made of the votes which have been given by the French people in reply to all the appeals which have been made to them by the successive usurpations since 1793. They are placed in a table thus—

Yes. No.

Constitution of 1793 1,801,918 11,610 Constitution of the year III 1,107,367 49,977 Constitution of the year VIII. 3,012,569 1,562 Senates Consultus of the year X. 3,568,335 8,374 Senates Consultus of the year XII 3,572,329 '2,569 Additional clauses 1,300,000 4,206 Plebiscite of 1851(about) 7,600,000 650,000 The "sycophants of the powers that be" deduce from these numbers, that no constitution has ever been consecrated by a number of votes ap- proaching that in favour of the one which Louis Napoleon is about to bring forth. They omit to remark, that the negative votes against the man and his acts are enormously above that of any former minority. The Parisians have passed through the stage of " tranquillity " which succeeded to the dragooning that perfected the coup d'etat, and have been throwing themselves with ardour into the festivities of the Christmas sea- non. The Boulevards have been occupied by the stalls for the sale of New

Year's Day presents ; and the populace have crowded these stalls as in tent on their trinkets as in the best-assured days of the governnnty are passed away. Nevertheless, there are occasional manifestations striking character against the violent regime which has relgaeed the Re. public. A coadjutor correspondent of the Times, whose eyes seem to be appointed to supply facts which escape the Elyseean vision of the "o,4 correspondent," gives these incidents- " At the Cirque Olympique, on Saturday, in a certain scene of a drama entitled Bonaparte in Egypt,' or as M. lawn calls it in the heading of hit fenilleton, Re-bonaparte en Egvpte,' the troops have to cry, Vive le Republique !' whereupon the audience rose en masse, and cheered a Pont. ramie. The same night, at the the Porte St. Martin, which has reopened under a new director, a lengthy melodrama of the Melingue school, entitled L'Imagier de Haerlern,' was presented for the first time. Laurent Coster to whom, among many others, is attributed the invention of printing, tin: folds the secret of his discovery to the Devil. Ton invention est bonne,' says the Devil : Elle favorisera la liberte,' replies Coster. J'y mettra; bon ordre—j' inviterai lee censeurs,' retorts the Devil. At this point a num- ber of well-known journalists started up suddenly, and cried, Bravo, bravo!' and the whole audience, at once sympathizing with the feeling which in_ cited the movement, took up the matter, and the applause became deafening. The hundred-eyed ' censeur,' however, was among them ; and a very shod time elapsed before orders from the authorities to cut out the offensive dia. lope reached the ears of the astonished manager." It is reported that the Court of Cessation, over which presides M. Pourtalis, has the intention of quashing the sentences of the court-martial on the so-called insurgents of the days of December who chose to respond to the appeal of that article of the Constitution which put the funda- mental law under the safeguard of all Frenchmen. But it is hinted that this intention may be welcomed by the Epee, as a mode of retracting some of the transportation severities intended for the enormously nume roue political prisoners.

The Municipal Council of the department of the Seine has been dis- solved and reconstructed, by a decree which was published in the Moniteur of the 28th ultimo. By this measure thirteen of the most distinguished mem- bers of the old Council have been dismissed. The names and characters of several of these gentlemen supply an instructive comment on the aims and proceedings of the Government which has deemed it necessary to get rid of them. The list includes—M. Bixio, who was for a short tune one of M. Bonaparte's Ministers; M. Vavin, who in 1848 so essentially served the commerce of Paris by the gratuitous liquidation of the civil list; M. Wolowski, (brother-in-law of M. Leon Faucher ) who in 1848 so ably and courageously confuted the doctrines promulgated from the Luxembourg by M. Louis Blanc; M. Horace Say, son of the celebrated political econo- mist, himself distinguished by his acquirements in that science ; M. Mor- timer Ternaux, ex-Deputy, for ten years the indefatigable promoter of the interests of the department ; M. Bourdon, Colonel of one of the Parisian Legions of the National Guards, decorated for his services in June 1848; M. Moreau, a counsellor in the Court of Cessation, who owes his dismissal probably to his courageous protest in behalf of law on the 2d of Decem- ber; and Paul Delaroche, the eminent painter. To these men no suspi- cion of Red Republicanism or Communism attaches. They are distin- guished by intellect, experience of practical business, and solidity of cha- racter.

The departments as yet remain in the stage of "tranquillity" ; indeed, the suppressive measures still go on in them. The Chamber of Com- merce at Havre has been dissolved ; and the stainutes of the proceedings on the 5th of December, pronouncing against 'the Usurpation, are to be erased from its journals. The Prefect of the Allier has issued the fol- lowing ordinance.

" Whereas political inscriptions, and particularly the words 'liberty,' equality,' and fraternity, which figure on most of the public buildings, present no character of utility, but are, on the contrary, for the people a per- petual excitement to revolt by holding up to them the emblem and recollec- tion of a triumphant insurrection ; whereas the same may be said of the trees called of liberty' which obstruct our public squares and walks, and are now dried-up and decayed sticks, the Prefect decrees

" Article 1. Every political inscription, without exception, and in par- ticular the words liberty," equality, fraternity,' shall be immediately re- moved from the fronts of public edifices and private dwellings. The trees of liberty shall be cut down or rooted up. "Article 2. Trees which, having grown luxuriantly, are an ornament to the commune, are alone to be excepted." It is said that the ordinance will be extended to all the departments.

The military organization of France is remodelled—made more ca- pable of efficient working by the supreme dispenser of appointments. The nine military divisions are now rearranged into twenty-one principal divisions, with as many principal commands, all subordinate to "the Prince" Commander-in-chief.

The Procureur-General of Toulon has addressed a circular to the duges- de-Paix of the recently insurgent department of the Var, telling them that they must now aid the clergy in exhorting the people "to reject the poisonous doctrines of Communism, and yield a submissive obedience to the authorities."

The Moniteur of Sunday published several decrees for effecting reforms in different parts of the public administration. One of these reforms is the consolidation of the departments of customs and indirect taxes. M. Greterin, the experienced chief of the Customs department, is made president of the consolidated departments,"with the duty of reorganizing the service on an effective but economical basis. Dismissals from office have already been made, in the course of this reorganization ; and the waters of official discontent are said to be already widely let out. At the same time, the Elysee is overwhelmed by applications for office from de- partmental retainers who have assisted in the coup d'etat. "The most petty and the most important situations are alike demanded : the Presi- dent has, up to the present time, received not less than 6000 applications for the dignity of Senator, and 1200 for the place of Councillor of State."

Nothing more is known of what the new constitution will be, but there have been indications in the Patrie of an important feature. The Patric implies that the main distinction between the new constitution and that of the First Consul will be the suppression of the Tribunal, and the trans- fer of its functions to the Corps Legislatif. "This body (the Legislative) will discuss before adopting or rejecting them, in their entire form, with- out being able to modify their special provisions, the bills which will be presented to it by the Government, which the Council of State will have prepared, and which will be defended in the Assembly by members of the former body." The writer in the Patric, M. Delamarre, traces half the cells of the Parliamentary system in France to the use of the tribune, and as tendency to subject the Assembly to a few great orators : therefore, he curs in the intention, which he anticipates, "that there be no tribune, ,m.reading-desk, in the centre of the semicircular ranges of benches ; but that each member is to speak, as in England, from his place." It is quite uncertain what are the detailed intentions towards the press. paw one thing seems agreed on by all accounts—that the new regime to be most rigid, and that the journals are to be considered as "public establishments," like the theatres, which are to be under the complete „relation of the police. Elaborate explanations have appeared of several 64pcsed systems for " regulating " the " liberty of the press," said to be seriously occupying the President and his advisers. One of them pro- poses to continue "the actual regime of the censorship, or, according to circumstances, the suspension or even suppression of the journal incul- pated." By another it is proposed that the censorship should cease, and the journals be made subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals sad courts of appeal : but this is made nugatory by the reservation to the Government of "the right to suspend for months," and after two sus- pensions to suppress, the journal condemned. A third plan, said to be the most in favour at the Elysee, abolishes the censure, and places the journals under the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, " but not by jury" ; and it retains to the Government the right of suspension and suppression. All the plans retain the present condition of heavy cantion-money and heavy pecuniary penalties. The still existing newspapers are beginning to resume the expression of the opinions of their conductors, though with great caution. M. Armand Benin's name again appears in the Debate; which "accepts accepts the situation without discussing it," and of course without supporting it. M. Emile de Girardin, who was said to be meditating the establishment of a Repub- lican paper in Brussels, by which he would enfilade the fortifications of imperial Paris, has resolved to stay, and to reaccept the principal edit- orship of La Prase. M. de Lamartine is endeavouring, despite serious illness, to found a new journal, in concert with M. Pradie—the Repre- sentative who moved the strict amendments to the bill of the Council of State defining the responsibility of the President. Somewhat on the same side—of opposition to the Napoleonist entourage—it is stated that Dr. Peron, of the Constitutionnel, has conceived immense disgust at not having been made a member of the Consultative Commission, and at the understood resolution that he shall not be a member of the forthcoming Senate. He went to the Elysee, and 'hinted that some liberty of the press had better be conceded soon ; and being told by M. de Morny that there is no intention of relaxation, he emphatically replied, " On vows forcers." To fill any possible void in journalism, M. Chautard has esta- blished a Bonapartist organ, to be called La Democratie Hapoleenienne. The feuilleton, which is on the " Isle of Elba and the Hundred Days," has a singularly inappropriate motto from the sayings of " the Prince," "Ma voix est fibre comma ma pensee : j'aime in liberte !"

The Government is said to have applied to the Bank of France for a loan of 100,000,000 francs. The Bank is said to have first refused, and then, in fear of a decree materially affecting its own position, to have of- fered the loan.

The relations of the new military Government with most of the old military Governments of Europe appear to be very cordial. It is said that M. Balabin, who has arrived in Paris from St. Petersburg, is the bearer of an autograph letter from the Czar to Louis Napoleon. with the order of St. Andrew, which has chiefly been limited to crowned beads. There seems to be as much sympathy at Vienna with the new regime. But the Cabinet; ofBerlin is said to be recoiling from its first satisfaction at the "reestablishment of order," and to be preparing for possible con- tingencies in the outlying and disaffected Prussian provinces en the Rhine. It is said also, that King Leopold has shown so much adverse sentiment towards the new regime, that M. Persigny has been sent on a mission of a threatening character—to demand that refugee Frenchmen be delivered up, that a stricter press law he passed, and that the cost of the French expedition to Antwerp in 1831 be paid. Interesting personal scraps are scattered in the Paris correspondence. " The Archbishop of Paris, who is a stern Republican, proposed to M. Dupin, on the 2d of December, that the members of the Assembly should meet in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which he offered to place at their dis- posal. You can assemble,' said the venerable father of the Church, under the crucifix ; I and my clergy will be stationed at the door, and to get at you the troops must pass through our bodies.' The offer was declined. Had it been accepted, it is possible the 'coup d'etat' might not have been so im- mediately triumphant.'

When Madame and Mademoiselle Odier went to Ham to announce to M. Cavaignac the order for his liberation, the General, who had seen no- body during the interval' of his confinement, and knew nothing of what had occurred since, immediately exclaimed, on seeing them—"Et que Mt la Chambre ? " bn being informed that the Chamber no longer existed, he burst into tears.

The marriage of General Cavaignac and Mademoiselle Louise Gabriel Odier took place on the evening of Wednesday sennight, at the church of the Oratoire Saint Honore. The service was performed by M. CoquereL The ceremony according to the Catholic rites took place on Thursday evening, at Notre Dame, before the Archbishop of Paris.

GE1131ANY.—The news of Lord Palmerston's retirement from the Eng- lish Ministry was received at Vienna on Christmas Day ; and so important and pleasing was the fact deemed by the Austrian Government, that an extra number of the Wiener Zeitung was printed next day to publish it. At the Bourse, on the 27th, " the metalliques " rose considerably ; but " the funds " subsequently fell one half per cent. M. Krauss, the Austrian Minister of Finance, has resigned • and been succeeded by M. Von Baumgartner, of the Ministry of Trade.

It is currently reported in Vienna, that a few weeks before the Bona- partist coup d'etat at Paris, the Count de Chambord received a letter from General Changarnier, urging him to come to Paris and avail himself of the proper moment for asserting his rights : if he stood on French ground Changarnier would assure him of the crown of France in fourteen days. The Count is said to have declined; he would take nothing but "a gene- ral call from all France."

All the Zollverein States bordering on the Rhine have expressed their assent to the treaty with Holland negotiated by Prussia.

UNITED STATE8.—The official Washington Republic of the 16th De- cember takes some pains to show, that "of all the speakers on either side of the Senate Chamber upon the vote of welcome to Kossuth, not one gave his unqualified adhesion to the only principle for which Kossuth thinks it worth while to struggle." The National Intelligeneer, also official, has had amortiele on " nonintervention," which concludes with the words 4. Beware, then, of the tempter !" A special messenger was despatched by President Fillmore from Washington on the night of the 16th Decem- ber, to invite Kossuth to the capital under the joint resolution of welcome voted by the two Houses. Kossuth was to leave New Your on the 22d December. Various reports were rife concerning the Russian and Austrian Ministers,—that their passports would be demanded, &c. ; but nothing positive had transpired. In the Senate, Mr. Walker of Wisconsin, a Democrat, had given notice of moving a preamble and resolution, "that the signs of the times are por- tentous of an approaching struggle in Europe between the Republican masses for constitutional government on the one side and the advocates of monarchy or absolute government on the other" : therefore, that a Committee do report on the expediency of an open declaration to foreign nations and the world, that the UnitedStates holds strictly the sovereign right of nations to dispose of their internal concerns, and that any inter- vention in breach of this right justifies other nations in intervening to protect the sovereignty violated ; and on the expediency of negotiating with other constitutional governments for the defence and maintenance of this principle. Cartens.—Quebec letters, of the 12th December, state that the contest for the election of the new Parliament was fast drawing to a close : the heat of the day was over, and everywhere the victory was assured to the Ministerial party. The great question of the coming session for Canada East would be that of the abolition of seignorial tenures. Mr. Drum- mond's plan would most probably be revived ; but it is remarked, " the seigneurs seem resigned to their fate."

INDIA AND CHINA.—The main point of the news by the overland mail from Bombay of the 3d December, is that "the expedition from Cal- cutta to enforce apology and reparation from the Burmese" had set out on the 19th November. Up to this time, it was not, we believe, more than rumoured as possible that such an expedition would be despatched. The grievances we complain of have not ever been very clearly specified, but we suppose they are those which were touched on some months since, for which Rajah Brooke endeavoured unsuccessfully to negotiate satis- faction. The _Bombay Times describes the force sent as consisting of her Ma- jesty's ships Fox (42), Serpent (12), and the Company's war-steamers Tenasserim and Proserpine, all under the command of Commodore Lam- bert of the Queen's service. " The first efforts to obtain reparation will probably be made at Rangoon; should our demands not be instantly complied with, that place will be held in pledge till they are satisfied." Captain Lewis and Mr. Edwardcs, accomplished Burmese scholars, go as interpreters. At Bombay, there had been a renewed outbreak of the religious feud between the Mahometans and the Parsecs. There were serious riots on the 22d and 23d November, and the military were again called into action. A Parsee was killed in the riots. Since the commotion, 100 soldiers had been quartered in Sir Jamsetjee Jejeeboy's meeting-house, to protect it. Sir Erskine Perry, Mr. Lumsden, and other European gen- tlemen, had mediated between the principal men of the Parsees and Ma- hometans„• at last, the Parsee editor of the Goozerattee newspaper whickpablished the offensive portrait of Mehemet explained and apolo- gized ; and thereupon the High Priest of the Mahometans engaged that his religionists should live in peace with the Parsees.

It was reported very circumstantially, that Dost Mohammed and Gho- lab Singh were both dying. Either event would probably give us em- ployment.

Passes.—Constantinople journals of the A4th December state that there had been a violent governmental crisis at Teheran. Mirza Taghi Khan, first Minister since 1848, had fallen from power, and been replaced by his brother. He had nearly fallen a victim to popular fury ; why, is not said.