duty which we ought to be, on our part, anxious to discharge
towards him."

The President is fast carrying into effect one of the
first decrees issued by him after the 2nd December, 1851.
The suppression of the Bagne of Rochefort will be
shortly followed by that of the Bagne of Toulon. In a
few days 400 convicted felons of this last establishment
are to be transported to Guyana, and the remainder
are to be removed to the Bagne of Brest. Religious
communities are being extended in an extraordinary
degree throughout France. The Abbé Lacordaire, of
the order of St. Dominic, has conferred the habit of the
Dominicans on four novices educated in the Monastery
of Flavigny, in the Côte d'Or, which contains seven
friars and eighteen novices. The French Dominicans
possess another house in the establishment of the
Carmelites in Paris, a third at Nancy, and a fourth
near Grenoble. The Moniteur announces a reduction
in the interest on Treasury bonds. The future interest
is fixed as follows: On bonds at from four to five
months' date, 11/2 per cent, per annum. On bonds at
from 5 to 11 months' date 2 per cent. On bonds at
one year, 3 per cent. Petitions for the re–establishment
of the Empire, signed by 15,000 inhabitants of the
department of the Cantal, have been forwarded to the
Senate.

A case of singular depravity in high life has made a
great sensation in Paris. The story is thus told by one
of the journals:—The Countess———, belonging to a
princely house of one of the small States of the Germanic
Confederation, manifested warm passions at an early
period, and to prevent their producing disgraceful
results her family hastened to get her married.
Marriage did not subdue her passions, and after a few
stormy years she became a widow. Her misconduct now
knew no limit. Forgetting her education, her rank,
and all respect for propriety, she had a succession of
lovers, and gradually descended in the social scale until
she went off with the traveller of a commercial house,
whose character was bad, and who had been attracted
as much by her large fortune as by her beauty. After
an absence of some time, they returned to Paris, and
took up their abode in a splendid hotel of the Chaussee
d'Antin, where the clerk caused her to put her signature
to bills, which he got discounted, and paid his debts
with the proceeds. The Count of———, being informed
of the degrading life that the Countess was leading in
Paris, endeavoured to effect a change by causing her
separation from the man with whom she was living;
but this did not suffice. She took one lover after
another, until at last the man chosen was a low Jew,
who treated her with cruelty, and robbed her of her
property, and then abandoned her in a state of destitution,
when in an advanced period of pregnancy. Soon
after this the external signs of pregnancy "had
disappeared, and rumour was current that she had been
secretly delivered, and had destroyed her infant. This
rumour having reached the ears of justice, an inquiry
was instituted, and it was ascertained that a child had
been born alive, and immediately strangled, and thrown
down a water–closet. The Countess has been
arrested, and is now in the prison of St. Lazare." The
Presse, after copying this account, adds—"The
person alluded to is the Countess Kinska, a relative of
Prince Metternich. A search was made by the police
in the apartment occupied by the Countess, and a
voluminous correspondence was seized."

The conspirators concerned in the "gas–pipe plot,"
detected in the Rue de la Reine–Blanche, in June last,
have been tried. Fifteen of the prisoners were condemned
to terms of imprisonment varying from one to
three years, and fined in various sums from 300 to
1000 francs. Two others were subjected to surveillance.
The woman Desmars, polisher, cried out after the
delivery of sentence, "Vive la Republique." She was
condemned to two years' imprisonment, and 500 francs
fine. Favre, a young medical practitioner, was condemned
to two years' imprisonment and 1000 francs fine.

The Vienna papers contain a horrible story of
banditti. A peasant of Gallician Podolia had sold a
pair of oxen at a fair; he drank freely on the occasion,
and for the safety of his money fastened it round the
waist of his daughter in a girdle. On passing through
a wood, three men fell upon the man, dragged him
away, and murdered him, his daughter witnessing the
dreadful scene from a distance. She fled, and gained
the shelter of a cottage; she told a woman who was in
the cottage what had occurred, and gave the money
into her custody: the woman placed her in a bedroom.
Presently the girl heard the three murderers enter—one
was the woman's husband. They related to her their
disappointment at not finding the money upon the
peasant; she laughed, showed them the belt, and said
the girl was in the house. The villains resolved to
murder her too, by burning her to death in the oven!
The girl heard them light the fire. Despair gave her
strength to break a hole through the clay wall of the
hut, and she got out, met two gendarmes, and told her
tale. The assassins and the woman were afterwards
arrested.

One of the fruits of the Emperor's journey through
Hungary has been a commutation of punishments. The
last batch consists of fifty persons of all classes of society;
including Duscbek, Baron Nicolas Vay, Keeper of the
Crown, John Vidats, leader of the Pesth students,
common Honveds, lawyers, and clergymen. In most
cases these men were sentenced to "death by the rope,"
and their sentences are commuted into imprisonment
for terms of years varying from twenty to two years.
Some half–dozen have been fully pardoned. The
heaviest punishments fall on the Honveds.

An Englishman named Newton has recently been
subjected to the most outrageous treatment by the
Austian authorities at Verona, the particulars of which
are thus stated in a letter from his father, Sir William
Newton, R.A.:–" My son (an architect) was returning
homewards through Verona from his travels, and while
examining a part of the fortifications was arrested by
the sentinel on duty and taken to the guard–house; and
although he proved he was not sketching (for that was
the charge against him), as he had only 'Murray's
Guide Book' and a plan of Verona in his hands, he was
nevertheless kept one hour and a half, and thence
conveyed to the police, and there detained two hours
and a half. My son naturally remonstrated, and
inquired why he was thus treated; but the only answer
he could obtain was 'That is an affair of the military
authorities.' A person was then ordered to accompany
my son to his hotel and examine all his drawings and
papers (which he did in the most searching manner),
and if 'nothing was found of an objectionable character,'
the orders were to discharge my son; and although
nothing of that kind was discovered (there being
nothing), still he was taken back to the police office,
and finally conveyed to prison, without being allowed
to go back to his hotel to take some food—he not having
had anything since breakfast, and it being then half–past
ten o'clock at night. His keys and everything he had
in his pockets were taken from him on arriving at the
prison. The dungeon was of a 'most loathsome
character;' he was confined all night, in perfect
darkness, with two low characters (one, I believe,
a malefactor); and had only a straw mattress on the
ground to repose upon, and which proved to be full of
vermin. Next morning he was so ill and exhausted
that, when a person came with some food at eight
o'clock, he could not take any; he was detained until
four o'clock on that day, aud then liberated, without
any charge being made against him. In this weak
state he could scarcely walk; but so soon as he was able
he stated his case in writing, and conveyed it to Marshal
Radetzky, who after three days referred him to the
Governor of Verona. He was, however, treated so
rudely by this official, that he was not allowed to state
his case, but was ordered to leave the house, which he
did;, and then my son considered it right to inform
Marshal Radetzky of the nature of that interview. My
son waited in Verona three or four days afterwards, in
expectation that some explanation would have been
given to him; but in failure of which he retraced his
steps to Venice, and there laid his case before her
Majesty's Consul, who was at last induced to take some
steps in this act of aggression and outrage. Upon