LXXX. L'accusation
LXXX. The Accusation
This issue covers Sir Robert Peel's Irish policy, Mexico's declaration of war over Texas, and the French military's adoption of Adolphe Sax's instruments.
- Mexico's acting president ordered all interior governors to mobilize troops and declared war on the United States over the annexation of Texas, calling it 'flagrant usurpation.'
- Sir Robert Peel dismissed Orange magistrates who attended anti-Catholic gatherings, prompting the Earl of Winchelsea to resign his three county justice-of-the-peace commissions in protest.
- Russia deployed 160,000 men along the Caucasus lines against Shamil, yet soldiers reportedly refused to advance, officers formed volunteer corps to breach barricades of mutilated Russian corpses, and Prince Woronzoff was forced to draw his sword in personal defence at Dargo.
- At the Pamplona bullfight attended by Queen Isabella II and the French princes, matador Montes performed the dazzling capear manoeuvre before 15,000 spectators, and a pigeon released from a dart's fireworks perched before the Queen, who ordered it kept alive and transported to Madrid.
- In Marseille, a cuckolded grocer tracked his wife and her lover to a police superintendent's office, whereupon the lover drew a pistol and immediately blew out his brains; the husband then walked out with his wife on his arm through a mocking crowd.
- A confidence trickster posing as a retired goldsmith and a 'Polish nephew of the Archbishop of Cologne' swindled a curé near Les Andelys of ten years' savings in exchange for diamonds that proved to be pieces of fine crystal.
- France's Minister of War signed an ordinance adopting Adolphe Sax's instruments — including the saxophone, sax-horn, and bass clarinet — for all army bands, replacing 50-piece infantry orchestras and 36-piece cavalry bands after a public competition that Sax won to audience applause.
- Léon Feugère published a new biography of La Boétie, Montaigne's closest friend and author of the Discours sur la Servitude volontaire, drawing attention to the Renaissance humanist's poetry and his largely forgotten place in French literary history.