XXXIV. Apparition · XXXV. La mazzolata
XXXIV. The Apparition (cont.) · XXXV. La Mazzolata
The Duc d'Aumale departs for Naples to marry, debate over a Suez canal versus railway dominates, and the Arno floods Florence.
- The Duc d'Aumale left the Tuileries for Naples, where he will marry Princess Caroline-Auguste of Salerno on 25 November, the same date as his parents' wedding anniversary.
- A detailed analysis argues that a direct 120-kilometre maritime canal from Suez to ancient Pelusium — bypassing Cairo entirely — is preferable to Waghorn's proposed railway, and could be built by Egypt's Mehmet Ali for as little as 30–40 million francs.
- The Arno rose seven to eight feet in parts of Florence on the night of 2–3 November, sweeping away the iron suspension bridge built by the Séguin brothers and submerging the Santa Croce quarter to the first floor of houses.
- Antoine Jérôme Balard, discoverer of bromine, was elected to the chemistry seat at the Académie des Sciences by only 28 votes to 26, defeating the section's first-ranked candidate Edmond Frémy after a four-hour debate.
- Marshal Bugeaud returned to Algiers aboard the Sphinx after the Flissas-el-Bahar and Beni-Djnad tribes made full submission; Algeria's agricultural nurseries, the report noted, now dispatch up to 200,000 tree-roots annually.
- A Le Havre prisoner nearly escaped after a confederate hid two files, a small saw, two cold chisels, a hammer, and a large rope inside a 3-kilogramme hollowed-out loaf of bread delivered by an unwitting market woman.
- A 74-year-old woman in Pau bound broken glass around her head with a ligature before throwing herself from a second-floor balcony; she had pre-packed her own winding-sheet and left a black petticoat to spare a friend the cost of mourning clothes.
- The Abbé Loubert, now a Jesuit novice, was sued for plagiarism after copying more than 300 pages verbatim from a pamphlet on animal magnetism by M. Mialle — while simultaneously denouncing its author as an enemy of religion.