The Ashland Union

FRENCH ARMAMENTS. The Paris correspondent of the Morning Herald says : At the close of the Italian war last year, 300 millions of francs had been expended out of the 500 millions raised by loan. The government proclaimed with a great flourish of trumpets, that the 200 remaining millions would be employed in "giving an impulse" to "commerce and manufacturers." Of that huge sum (eight millions sterling) only £300,000 is now left, and every farthing of it has been expended on the army and navy; but especially on the navy, as Messrs. Arman and Co. of Bordeaux, and other private shipbuilders, are well aware. Two steam rams have been launched, and two more are on the stocks; 100 gunboats are building at the works of La Seyne, near Toulon; of this number, some 20 have been already launched and fitted out.— Moreover, 25 large steam transports, each able to convey 2,000 troops for a long voyage, and double that number for a short sea passage, have been launched, and forty-five more are to be built, twenty of which are on the stocks.- In addition to this, every good anchorage on the channel coast,from Dunkirk to Cherbourg, is now commanded by batteries and earthworks, cleverly constructed in clefts of the cliffs, and mounting from six to thirty guns. The harbour of Fecamp, well known to Newcastle colliers is being fortified; docks are being built there, and it is to be quietly and noiselessly converted into a military port of the second class. Its situation is admirably adapted for a cruising station- from whence Portsmouth may be watched. , All the principal ports on the coast are connected together by the electric telegraph, and. a gigantic plan is about to be carried out to fortify the mouths of the principal rivers. If to these naval preparations the cost of the new rifled artillery is added, it is not difficult to account for the 200 millions which the Italian war did not consume.