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XCIII. Valentine

XCIII. Valentine

Algeria, Tahiti, and the French departmental councils dominate this issue of the Journal des Débats.

  • Admiral Hamelin and his British counterpart agreed that a joint Anglo-French ultimatum would demand Queen Pōmare's immediate submission to the French protectorate of Tahiti, with dethronement threatened if she refused.
  • A letter from Constantine reports that the Zibane region's tax yield in 1845 reached nearly double the 50,000-franc war contribution of the previous year, with local inhabitants openly praising French administration.
  • France's departmental councils, once seized by political passion, now petition exclusively for practical reforms — abolishing the salt tax, improving teachers' derisory 200-franc salary, and building cellular prisons.
  • Dr Newman, co-leader with Dr Pusey of Oxford's High-Church movement, is reported by the London Morning Post to have converted to Roman Catholicism — a step expected to produce a profound effect on the Church of England.
  • At the Cour d'assises de la Seine, escaped convict Jules Chartier — condemned nine times and having broken out of penal colonies four times — told the presiding judge he fully intended to escape again.
  • A 20-year-old prisoner named Compagnon stabbed Brother Pascal six times with a three-cornered file in the central prison of Nîmes after the Brother caught him in a compromising act, killing the friar within a quarter of an hour.
  • At Rochefort a man shot and killed his cousin dead in the nuptial chamber, reportedly from jealousy over the cousin's attentions to his wife.
  • The bronze statue of William the Silent, sculpted by Comte de Nieuwerkerke, passed through Le Havre aboard the barge Jean-Bart en route to embarkation on a Dutch steam frigate.