FRANCE.

Wellington Independent, Volume V, Issue 427, 14 November 1849, Page 3

FRANCE.

Paris, Tuesday Morning, July 3. At the end of the sitting of the Legislative Assembly yesterday, M. Versigny demanded explanations from the Government relative to its intentions with respect to bombarding Rome M. O. Barrot replied by declaring that the despatches which were sent by General Oudinot showed how studiously the besieging army avoided doing injury to the city; the same time, the Government could ndt permit a band of strangers and adventurers to place themselves forward and oppose with impunity the French troops, contrary to the will of the population of Rome. This reply excited loud exclamations from the Left, and after some remarks from M. Lagrange the inc'dent terminated. At the commencement of the sitting the President read a letter from General Bedeau, demanding leave of absence to falfil a temporary mission entrusted to him by the Minister of War. The leave was, as a matter of course, accorded. There was no other business of any interest. The Constitulionncl in announcing the departure of General Bedeau for Rome says that " the object of his mission is to observe the state of affairs, and, in case of necessity, to take the chief command of the French forces." 'The'cholera-* continues to diminish. On the 28th June the deaths were as follows : —ln private houses, 23 ; in civil hospitals, 16; in military hospitals, 1: total, 40. On the 29th the deaths in private houses were 34 ; in civil hospitals, 13 ; in military hopitals, 1 : total, 48. On the 30th the deaths in civil hopitals were 19, and in military hospitals 4 ; the returns of deaths in private houses is only 6, but it is not complete. General Lamoriciere is appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to St. Petersburgh. FRENCH REPUBLIC. The following, appeared in successive editions of Tha Morning Chronicle of yesterday;— Paris, Monday Evening, July 2. I this morning informed you that General Oudiiibt, the commander-in-chief uf the French expedition to Rome, had been suddenly recalled; and that General Bedeau, who .has already left Paris on his way to' Toulon, had been appointed in his stead to the chief command of the army of Italy. It appears that this change was determined on by the Government in consequence of the recent news from the seat of war. From the commencement of the campaign it was felt that General Oudinot was not a proper person to command such an expedition. His whole military life has been that of a cavalry officer. He has consequently had no experience whatsoever in the manoeuvring of regular armies, and far less in siege operations. In his imprudent advance upon Rome he was considered to have shown great want of the most ordinary foresight, when on the 30th of April he allowed his men to get entangled in the suburbs of the city, without first having ascertained that the Romans were willing to receive him; and the check he received on that occasion has been a source of great embarrasment to the Government ever since. In the hope of preventing similar or other blunders, Generals Vaillant and Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely were sent out to assist in the operations of the seige ; and it was fondly imagined that the speedy surrender of the Eternal City would at one and the same time crown the French arms with glory, and conceal the deficiencies of the general commanding them; but the siege has now been dragging on for a month, and the army is still at the outer wall. The progress made towards the possession of Rome is very trifling, and, from all appearance, Garibaldi and his men may hold out for another-month just as well as he has held out for the last. Besides this, fresh blunders havo bean cfemnaitted. Tha.' paint which'Ga;-

neral Oudinot selected for his attack Is' now discovered to have been, in all the circumference of Rome, the "very one where he had the least chance of success. Seduced by the fact of its being the highest point of the city, he over < looked the important fact that it was the only portion of it which was guarded by a double wall. To all appearance, General Oudinot did not know that between : the Porta St. Pancrazio and the Porta Portese a portion of the ancient wall built by Aurelian is left, which, joining the modern fortification at the Villa Shada, runs in a straight line to near the Porta Portese, where it again touches the modern fortification, and thus completely isolates the angle between these two points. By a sort of fatality, it was just this angle that General Oudinot chose to : attack; and the consequence is, that after a month's siege, after the formation of parallels and places d'armes, after battering down two bastions and the curtain between them, and finally, after assault which cost him the lives of a good many of his men, and the expenditure of a vast quantity of ammunition, he finds himself in front of Aurelian's wall, which the Romans have fortified strongly, and as far from being within the city of Rome as he was a month ago. The curious part of the affair is, as 1 have said above, that this is only part of the city which is thus doubly, fort'fied; and the only way . the blunder can be accounted for is, by supposing either that General Oudinot was ignorant of the existence of Aure- . ban's wall at this point (though it is laid down in all the map), or that he erro- < neousl/ conceived that it was not capable of defence. But this is not all. It now appears that, iv following up the attack upon the second defences of the Romans, the . French army has difficulties to contend with that did not exist in the attack on the modern wall. It is now perched ' on the breach of its own making, where the ground is composed of ancient ; buildings and ruins so solid that it will 1 be the work of weeks, if not altogether - impossible, to form parrallels, covered •■ ways, places d'armes, and all the other < etceteras, which enabled Genearl Oudi- ' not to form his approaches to the modern i wall. The consequence is, that not only i have the French to recommence the . same process of attack upon Rome that < they have been labouring at for the last '■ month; but that, if the same point of at- ' tack be continued, they will have a much < more laborious and more dangerous service to perform than they had in the first instance. I understand that the despatches from : M. de Corcelles, and from other agents : of the French Government, which reach- . ed Paris along with the recent despatches j of General Oudinot, but which have not i been published, have placed these facts 1 in a very strong point of view, and that t General Oudinot is represented in them i as being quite unfit to contend with the t difficulties of the position. It was these despatches which determined the French : Government to recall General Oudinot, and to send General Bedeau to take his place. The fact of his having taken the modern wall by. assault.and having by this exploit apparently got within Rome, has given some slight eclat to General Oudinot, in the. eyes of those who do not know all the circumstances; and the occasion is thought a good one to recall him, without appearing that he has been disgraced. Besides the personal incapacity of General Oudinot, one ofthe reasons which have induced the Government to recall General Oudinot is the impatience shown by the army under his command, which has recently become so great that there were some apprehensions of an emeute among the taoops. It appears, also, that General Oudinot had serious differences with the Generals under him. and especially with General Vaillant. General Bedeau, the new commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, is one of the most distinguished of the young French generals who have made their reputation in Algeria. He was born in 1804, he was appointed Lieutenant-Col-onel of the foreign legion in Africa, where he first saw real fighting. In 1836 and 1839, as Colonel of the 17th Light Infantry, he formed part of the two expeditions to Setif. and for his conduct on that occasion he was raised to the rank of Major-General, and appointed Go vernor of Constantine. On his retirement from that command he was promoted to the rank of Major-General, and was in Paris when the Revolution of February broke out. On that occasion he is accused of not having displayed any great amount of loyalty to the Orleans family. He is even accused of having betrayed Louis Philippe. He is mentioned -with honour, in a publication which issued from the press soon after the revolution of February, for having commanded the first regiment which deserted the Royal cause and took the side of the people ; and it is added, that when the regiment in question marched along the boulevards with .arms reversed, in tokeu. of surrender, General Bedeau headed them. It is also' told! of him, that being in command..of the troops which formed the' guard '-At the Chamber of Deputies the fatal 24(;h of February, when the I3*u___e_s of \

■- J — 11" If I 11. I'l'-. HI! ■■JHOrleans, the Count de Paris-, and -the Duke de Nemours went there forthe purpose of being received, the first as Regent, and the second as Sovereign of France, it was General Bedeau who opened the gates, and admitted the mob into the Chamber of Deputies, when that dreadful scene took place during which loaded muskets were several times pornled at the royal party, and the result of which was that the whole of the familyhad to take to flight, and that the Republic was proclaimed. The conduct of General Bedeau on that eventful day will not readily be forgotten or forgiven; but he has since redeemed his character to a great extent in the eyes of the Moderate party in France by his conduct in the insurrection of June, during which, it will be recollected, he was desperately wounded, by his firm adhesion to the " friends of order," and by the reputation which he has obtained of being a devoted adherent to the elder branch ofthe Bourbons—thereby atoning in some respects for the branch. How he attained his character as a Legitimist I do not know, but it is certain that he was one of the first Generals to give in his adhesion to the Provisional Government, by which he was appointed, in the first place, commander of the garrison of Paris, and afterwards commander of one of the divisions of the army of the Alps. He is one of the representatives of Paris. It was at one time proposed to send General Changarueir to Rome, instead of General Bedeau, but the Ministers thought it might be imprudent to remove General Changarnier from Paris at the period of the elections. The appointment of General Bedeau gives great umbrage to the Republicans, who think that he is inclined to carry matters in favour of the Pope with too high a hand.