FRANCE AND SARDINIA.

Wellington Independent, Volume XV, Issue 1398, 17 January 1860, Page 5

FRANCE AND SARDINIA.

The Paris correspondent of the Times, in a let ter dated Tuesday evening, the lllb says;— .-'I

hare received a piece of intelligence of so singular arid im'poVtant a nature that I should hesitate to communicate it to you for. publication had I not great confidence in the opportunities mid veracity of my informant. It is to the effect that the French government proposes to claim from Piedmont the expenses it incurred in the late war with Austria. Such, I have strong reason to believe, is the Emperor's intention ; and, perhaps, if we do not confine ourselves too strictly to the bare fatrt, but look xt the matter from another point of view, we ni;iy find the project nearly identical with one that was long attributed to him. Notwithstanding her recent acquisition of a rich province, Piedmont is in no position to meet the various heavy pecuniary claims made upon her. It is no news tn anybody that the Piedmontese finances are in anything but a flourishing condition ; that the revenue has there long been «xceeded by ' the expenditure, that frequent loans have been contracted, and that the late war has occasioned a further great increase, in the burdens of the treasury. All these circumstances considered, does it not appenr highly probably that, if Prance makes a claim upon Piedmont for the expenses she incurred by the l;<te war- a claim which, if all those expenses are to be pa : d, can hardly amount to less than 300,000,000 f. or 40O,00O,O00f.— Piedmont may think that the best^ifnotthe only feasible way of acquitting herself will be to cede the provinces of Savoy and Nice? Notwithstanding all that may have been said and written to the contrary, I assure y"u,' most, positively—^as ; ;t T have done- before when writing from.ltaly.-~ that there was question of such cession early in the present yea>.. The unexpected termination of the war toy the convention of Vilhifranca, so bitterly distasteful, to Piedmont and to the Italian generally, made a change, we may natural^ supppje, in.the intentions uf the Sardinian Government, and that which it would have been willing to cede for the possession of Lornhardo-Veiietia 'was too much to give up for the insecure tenure of little more than half the territory— and that half continually menaced by a formidable line of Austrian fortresses. That there is an existing intention of making the pecuniary demand I have already told yyu my information leaves me little doubt. If it be made with the view of obtainin?, insteai of the money, the provinces of Savoy and Nic-;, the world will probably say that it is but a clumsy .means of attaining a renounced object, and no one will be deceived by the circuitous path adopted."