CXVII. Le 5 octobre
CXVII. October the Fifth
The French Chamber of Peers debates the 1845 Anglo-French slave-trade convention while Marshal Bugeaud reports a cavalry engagement against Abd-el-Kader near Tiaret.
- General Yusuf led 450 exhausted French horsemen against Abd-el-Kader's 800-strong cavalry at the Oued Temda on 23 December, driving the Emir from three successive positions and killing his horse beneath him.
- Duc de Broglie dismantled Comte Mathieu de La Redorte's attack on the May 1845 Anglo-French convention, arguing that cruisers possess a natural faculty to verify flags at their own risk — not a new right of search.
- A Paris couple, Monsieur and Madame Lefrançois, were found dead in their bedroom, asphyxiated overnight by coal-gas from a stove; neighbours raised the alarm after they failed to appear at their usual hour.
- Farm labourer Denis Leraut, 23, was sentenced to six years' hard labour for beating walnut-seller Mény to death over a dispute about two quarter-pounds of walnuts, then spending the night dancing and urinating on the dying man's face.
- Old Mahmoud-el-Cossantini, chief of the Aïssaouas Sufi brotherhood — men renowned for charming serpents and wild beasts — was devoured by a lion on the plain of Staouéli near Algiers, leaving only his feet, hands, and shreds of clothing.
- Baron Zangiacomi, President of a Chamber of the Cour de cassation, died in his sleep at eighty after presiding over four judgements just the Wednesday before; his manservant found his body already cold at daybreak.
- A City Hall banquet for four sons of Louis-Philippe drew 160 guests including Lamartine and chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas; the Duchess of Orléans separately donated 300 francs to workers left unemployed by a mill fire at Rethel.
- Tenor Roger of the Opéra-Comique will perform two mélodies composed for him personally by Giacomo Meyerbeer — La Dame invisible and Sur le Balcon — at forthcoming La France musicale subscription concerts on 15 and 17 January.