LIV. Robert-le-Diable · LV. Le major Cavalcanti
LIV. Robert le Diable (cont.) · LV. Major Cavalcanti
The death of Lord Grey, French military operations in Algeria, and a gold-hallmarking fraud trial dominate this issue.
- Lord Grey, Prime Minister who carried the Reform Bill in 1831 after first introducing it in 1793 with only 41 votes out of 565 members, died at age 81 — one of the last great Whig partisans.
- General Cavaignac's cavalry rode 44 leagues in 49 hours under a burning sun to raid the Hamianes-Gharabas tribe deep in the Sahara, seizing 11,000–12,000 sheep and 200 camels from an enemy who believed themselves beyond French reach.
- The rebel leader Bou-Maza narrowly escaped capture when Agha Hadj-Ahmed pursued him through mountainous scrubland for 18 leagues, seizing two powder-laden mules, a flag, and the horse Bou-Maza had long ridden into battle.
- Czar Nicholas I personally presided over the inauguration of Fort Alexander at Kronstadt — a granite fortress armed with 120 guns — as 18 warships and two divisions of gunboats fired salutes in the Gulf of Finland.
- Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, stricken with a nervous complaint while preparing to travel to Berlin, was ordered by her physicians to take the waters at the Porla spa in Närke, Sweden.
- A man named Victor Béchet shot his companion Adèle Lagier at point-blank range in Avignon, then turned the pistol on himself; both died the same day, and a farewell letter found on his body was too scandalous to print in full.
- Three employees of the Paris gold assay office — Dusseaut, Jacquet, and Boucher — stood trial for hallmarking jewellery made below the legal standard of 666 thousandths with forged punches, with jurors demanding an on-site inspection of the Hôtel des Monnaies.
- A mason's labourer named Sciauvaud, buried eight metres underground in a collapsed well just three days before his wedding, was freed alive after seven hours of rescue work, escaping with only a broken rib.