CVII. La fosse aux Lions
CVII. The Lion's Pit
Russian persecution of Polish nuns reaches the Pope, Algeria's Bou-Maza raids French positions, and a royalist charity faces trial in Paris.
- A Polish abbess received by Pope Gregory XVI presented Emperor Nicholas I's handwritten endorsement of Bishop Siemasko's torture of Catholic nuns: 'All that you have done is holy and venerable.'
- Algerian resistance fighter Bou-Maza, commanding 300 horsemen, set fire to villages, besieged Orléansville, and threatened Milianah, prompting General Bedeau to march from Médéah with a full column.
- Morocco's ambassador to France, the Pasha of Tetouan, was preparing to embark on a French steamship for a ceremonial coastal tour intended to publicly disprove Abd-el-Kader's claims of a Moroccan alliance against the French.
- Paris's Royal Court confirmed fines against the Duc des Cars, Prince de Montmorency-Robecq, and two others for running the Œuvre de Saint-Louis—a royalist charity secretly patronised by the Legitimist pretender Henri de Chambord.
- Comedian Étienne Arnal suffered burns to his face and scalp when liquid gas ignited at his writing-table; his eyes were saved 'by a veritable miracle' and the Vaudeville cancelled its performance.
- Painter Marcel Lagarde, aged 27, confessed to counterfeiting Belgian two-franc coins specifically to raise the 500-franc initiation fee demanded by a communist society calling itself la vraie famille.
- The viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, received the grand cordon of the Légion d'Honneur from France's consul-general Adolphe Barrot in a ceremony at Cairo's citadel palace, kissing King Louis-Philippe's autograph letter.
- The Revue Nouvelle announced an issue featuring historian Paul Mignet's unpublished documents on Mazarin and Cromwell alongside Jules Janin's unpublished letters of the Abbé de Rancé.