XCII. Le suicide
XCII. The Suicide
French tax revenues, Abd-el-Kader's insurgency in Algeria, and the Anglo-French intervention at Montevideo dominate this issue.
- Eighty-three French soldiers of the 8th Chasseurs d'Orléans, besieged for three days in the marabout of Sidi-Brahim, drank urine mixed with brandy and absinthe before cutting their way out with bayonets; only 14 survived.
- Captain Dutertre, a French prisoner sent by Abd-el-Kader to negotiate the marabout's surrender, instead shouted to his comrades to fight to the last man — and was beheaded for it.
- Auguste-Nicolas Maginot, 27, convicted of stabbing his wife to death and attempting to kill two sisters-in-law, was guillotined at Versailles; at sight of the scaffold he said only 'So there it is.'
- France's indirect tax receipts for the first three quarters of 1845 reached 688 million francs, some 14 million above 1844, driven largely by surging sugar and tobacco consumption.
- British and French squadrons seized the Argentine blockading fleet, landed 1,500 marines in Montevideo, and blockaded its ports to force Rosas to end his siege of the Uruguayan republic.
- Chinese imperial commissioner Ki-Ying petitioned the Daoguang Emperor to exempt law-abiding Chinese Christians from punishment; the Emperor replied in vermilion ink: 'I accede to the respectful request.'
- The new opéra-comique La Charbonnière, with libretto by Scribe and music by Monfort, scored a triumphant premiere at the Opéra-Comique, with Mlle Prévost's portrayal of the self-sacrificing coal-merchant mother moving the entire house to tears.
- The Prussian minister Count d'Arnim hosted a grand illuminated banquet in Paris for the birthday of the King of Prussia, attended by French ministers, foreign ambassadors, and senior military commanders.