AGITATION IN FRANCE.

West Coast Times, Issue 1188, 14 July 1869, Page 4

AGITATION IN FRANCE.

The announcement of a meeting to be held in the fifth electoral district, on 13th May, attracted to the Boulevard Beaumarchais an immense crowd, numbering about twenty thousand persons, who began to sing the " Marseillaise." A body of policemen, reinforced by five hundred Municipal Guards on foot and one hundred on horseback, drove back the crowd. Several persons were severely hurt, and an officer of the police was badly wounded. By mid-day everything was quiet. A meeting of the seventh electoral district, where M. Henri Rochefort is one of the candidates, was al^o held on 13th May, in the Boulevard St. Michel, and was followed by a similar demonstration. More than a thousand persons congregated and sang ihe " Marseillaise," but were dispersed by the police. " One fact," says a correspondent, " and a most interesting one, has just come to my knowledge, and I think I can assert, it to be authentic. At above eleven o'clock on the evening of Euiile Ollivier's electoral meeting, when the effervescence was at its height, and it was known that the ' Marseillaise was sung by the crowd moving towards the Place de la Bastile, the following telegram recacbed the Prefect of Police from the Tuilleries : — ' Respect a la liberte, mais respect a Tordre? It was only after having received this message that the Prefect took measures to prevent any serious outbreak. The Prefect of Police for the department of the Seine issued a notice on the 15th May, calling attention to the disturbances which accompanied the recent electoral meetings, and calling to mind the regulations in force for facilitating the traffic in the public thoroughfares. The prefect adds that fresh disturbances will not be tolerated, and that, if necessary, the law relative to assemblages in the streets will be put in force. He also calls upon all good citizens not to mix with the disturbers of public order." The Court Journal gives publicity to the following startling fact:—" The Empe ror of the Fiench has expressed a determination to startle France ere long — and Europe ton, undoubtedly. If his Afajesty carries out his di sign, which is to give a sudden order for the immediate concentration of 200,000 soldiers, with all the material of war, at a given place, it is to be hoped that it will not be on the Prussian frontier, or Bismarck might do the like, and out of the experiment a practical issue would, perhaps, result."