out.

questioned and he will attest the truth. The police can easily find him But no one will be brought to believe that it was on trifling grounds that the military and the civil power were placed at the disposal of one individual. And let it be observed, this was done unknown to Austria. The aid of the allied military was at my disposal, except the troops of Austria and of England. This business is little known in France, but a great deal abroad. They have tried to stop my mouth. While I was an exile in England, they endeavoured to induce Lord Castlereagh to enforce against me the alien bill. But, notwithstanding his weakness, Castlereagh refused. You have got your remedy,' answered he; you may prosecute this man before the courts of the country.' I then said I am on safe ground. I have been accused of having stolen the diamonds: this is false, and I have been already acquitted of the charge. There have been diamonds mislaid, no doubt, but not through me. I was offered, two or three years after, some of these very diamonds, which had been hidden, and I refused them. And the gold? the gold was deposited at midnight on the table of M. Vitrolles, at the Tuileries. It is a strange feature of this affair, that those who signed the fatal orders keep themselves out of the way, sheltered by their influence; and I am told not to name this personage or that—not to name the King nor M. de Vitrolles.

"I have struck an old man, but I pledge my word that I struck him slightly. I am sorry that I have been forced to employ this violence; but it is a calumny to say that I trampled on him." And thus he went on abusing Talleyrand, Anglèt, Vitrolles, Pasquier, the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, the President, and even his own Counsel, who, he said, had betrayed him. Upon this, the Counsel proved that, far from betraying his client, he had given him the best advice, namely, that of appealing to the Cour Royale, where Talleyrand could be summoned to appear, as the great state officers do not appear before the correctional courts.'-p. 351.

The Court, after a short deliberation, sentenced Maubreuil, as guilty of a recidive, to five years' imprisonment, and afterwards to ten years' surveillance of the high police. Maubreuil appealed, and the Cour Royale heard the appeal on the 23d March. The President asked the accused some explanations about the complaints he had uttered concerning his treatment in prison. They don't refuse me permission to communicate with my friends, but they intercept or prevent my communications by means of spies. I am teazed with offers of money, on condition that I name not the King nor M. de Vitrolles. Delavan, the prefect of police, sends his people to me. The newspapers prejudice my cause; they misconstruct my words: both royalists and liberals are against me. As for the latter, I know I have no favour to expect from them: I have in their eyes an original stain, which cannot be wiped off-I belong to the ancient nobility." Maubreuil's counsel demanded further time to procure documents; and also considering that the causes which led Maubreuil to the assault against M. de Talleyrand were of a most extraordinary nature, such as to exert an incalculable and unbounded influence on the mind of his client, the

counsel required the appearance of the persons connected with the famous mission of April, 1814, as well as the transfer of the papers of the different trials that had taken place previously in different parts of the kingdom on Maubreuil's affair. Consequently, the Prince Talleyrand, the Secretary Laborie, the three ex-Ministers Dupont, Langles, and Bourrienne, the Russian General Sacken, and the Prussian General Brockenhausen, who had countersigned the orders for the mission, the Duke of Rovigo, M. de Vitrolles, Roustan, Bonaparte's Mameluke, and others, were summoned, on the part of Maubreuil, to appear on the 15th June before the Cour Royale.

Ön the day appointed, a numerous assemblage of persons of rank filled the hall. Of all the individuals above named, who had been summoned, Roustan alone appeared. General Dupont wrote that he was unacquainted with the circumstances attending the assault at St. Denis! A M. Anglès appeared, but he was not the Count Angles, formerly commissary-general of police. The messenger of the court had served the summons on the wrong person! The following is a dialogue that took place in Court on the

occasion:

:

· Maubreuil.—“ The witness I have summoned is the regicide Anglès, the worst among those who signed the orders; he who wished for the blood of his former master.

'President.

teur of paintings.

"The witness who has answered the summons is an ama

Maubreuil. "The one I have summoned is an amateur of robbery and murder. Mr. President! after thirteen years' persecution, I only beg you for thirteen minutes attention. My position is very singular. I know that the papers will mis-report my words." And he went on declaiming, in no very moderate terms, on the newspapers and their editors, saying, that the Gazette des Tribunaux alone had dealt fairly and honourably with him. "A personage," continued Maubreuil, "whom I will not here name, but whose letter I have by me, and who is virtue itself, and whose deposition alone would assure my triumph, has entreated me not to name him. Napoleon was warned by him of the mission I had received.”

After much declamation and invective against Pasquier, Talleyrand, the Emperor Alexander, &c., during which he was several times called to order by the President, Maubreuil concluded at last by demanding that the persons who had disregarded the summons should be fined, summoned anew, and obliged to appear. The advocate-general, in reply, explained the difference which exists between witnesses summoned by the judges, and those cited by the parties: "The first receive an order, which they are bound to obey under a fine; the latter have a mere invitation to appear, which they incur no penalty for disregarding."-p. 390.

M. Pinet, one of Maubreuil's counsel, commented very severely on the scandal given by individuals, whose rank ought to make them particularly jealous of their character, but who, by their non

Ꮓ

appearance and silence, exhibited a strange disregard to it, as well as to the rights of justice. There seemed to be a mutual understanding between them. After reading several letters from Laborie to Maubreuil, M. Pinet argued that Laborie's presence in court would be highly necessary, to explain all the mysteries of his intercourse with Maubreuil. He then proceeded to read the conclusions of the attorney-general, in 1815, which implied strong moral accusations against the individuals who had been assigned, and especially against M. de Talleyrand.

"There is here more than enough," said M. Pinet, "to show the necessity of their appearance. Let the Prince of Benevento avail himself of these fine summer days to go and drink the waters, a convenient excuse to those who wish to avoid eclat,-let him afterwards rest himself from his labours under the cool shades of Valençay; history will have to judge him. We accuse him of having taken advantage of Maubreuil's youth and inexperience, to engage him in a well-known mission. We accuse him of having threatened Maubreuil afterwards to ruin him for ever, if he did not proceed further. We accuse him of having declared to Maubreuil that he would give him neither truce nor rest, until he should carry off Napoleon and his son, and take them to a convent in Spain. We have already for us a beginning of proof. Let M. Talleyrand and Laborie come forth and answer our interrogatories, if they dare."-p. 396.

The Court, however, over-ruled Maubreuil's conclusions concerning the witnesses, adopting the principle laid down by the advocate-general, and the trial proceeded. Roustan being examined, said that he never heard any rumour concerning a plot to assassinate the Emperor. He always slept in Napoleon's apartment at Fontainebleau, as well as elsewhere.

The Cour Royale, after a short deliberation, confirmed the sentence of the Correctional Court, which sentenced Maubreuil to five years' imprisonment, &c.

Thus this interminable affair appeared at last to have come to a conclusion, without however satisfying the public as to the real secret of the famous mission of 1814, any more than by allowing ample room for surmises on that mysterious transaction. There appears to have been a plan against Napoleon's person; did Talleyrand originate it? Was it intended to remove an obstacle to the return of the Bourbons? Were all those who signed the orders in the secret? Did Maubreuil intend really to fulfil his commission, or did he accept it for the purpose of countermining the plot? Did he seize the jewels of the Queen of Westphalia, on the supposition that they contained the crown diamonds? These are the questions that naturally present themselves to the mind, on reading the report of the whole of these intricate proceedings. The manner,

* In the "Journey of a Detenu," noticed in our number for September last, there is an account of Maubreuil's affair; in which, however, the writer appears to have been too hasty in coming to a conclusion upon the

however, in which Maubreuil was subsequently treated by the police, his long imprisonments without being brought to trial, the impediments thrown in his way, all these are certainly very unfavourable specimens of the administration of justice in France, and of the tenure of personal security in that country, even under its constitutional regime. It appears to us that there are many ways left for the use of arbitrary power; and the formidable engine of the police, and even the multifarious organization of the judicial courts, afford ample facilities for the purpose.

In justice to two of the persons most implicated by Maubreuil's declarations, we must quote also their own statements. The one is a letter from Count Anglès to the President of the Chamber of Correctional Appeals, dated 17th June, 1827, the day after that in which he had been summoned to appear on the part of Maubreuil. After stating that the summons had not been delivered to him, Count Anglès observes: "Had I been summoned by a competent authority, this is what I should have affirmed: On the 17th April, 1814, M. de Maubreuil came to the office of the general police. He was the bearer of an order from the War office, dated the 16th, which required the military authorities to assist him in the execution of a mission with which he was entrusted. I being absent at the time, M. Maubreuil saw the secretary, M. Champlouis, and declared to him that his object was to recover several valuable effects belonging to the war department, which I knew were missing. When I returned, Maubreuil was gone, after having waited some time; and I saw no objection in acceding to his wish of summoning the assistance of the civil authorities also. I therefore signed the order to that effect, without having spoken to, or even seen M. de Maubreuil." Count Anglès proceeds to state, that had he dreaded the declarations of M. Maubreuil, had he been concerned in the supposed mysterious instructions, he would have naturally avoided every chance of bringing that person before the public; instead of which he, Count Anglès, upon hearing of the attack upon the Queen of Westphalia, caused Maubreuil to be arrested, first at Paris, in 1814, again at Ghent, in 1815, and a third time, in 1816, in order to have him brought to trial. p. 410.

With regard to M. de Talleyrand, we have the following verbal communication from him to the editor of these trials :

"In the midst of the disorder of 1814, I was appointed chief of the provisional government. I was anxions to repress, as much as I could, the dilapidations which so sudden a change would naturally occasion, in order to restore France with the least possible injury into the hands of the king. Every body was grasping for himself: The plans of the war office,

above points. Besides his narrative, able as it is, has not the judicial authenticity of the reports now before us. We still are of opinion that the mystery is not all unravelled, although there is evident exaggeration in Maubreuil's statement.

the papers in the archives, the diamonds of the crown, the funds of the treasury, every thing was fast disappearing. M. Dupont and I gave freely authorizations to seize on such public property, wherever found. My hotel was opened to every one; it was the seat of government, and the rendezvous of those who had any transaction with the executive. It was then, perhaps, that MM. Maubreuil and Dasies appeared there; but I gave them no orders, no mission. The first time I heard of them, was on the news of the attack on the Princess of Wurtemberg. M. Maubreuil, however, was not unknown to me, for I had seen him some days before from the window of my apartment, riding in the Place of Louis XV., with a crowd after him, attracted by the sight of the Imperial decoration tied to his horse's tail.

"It was I, continued M. de Talleyrand, who arranged the treaty of Fontainebleau, and who stipulated for the interests of the Empress Maria Louisa. Bonaparte had then signed his abdication; but, we ought to acknowledge it, he had done many great things, and the idea of procuring his death could not have entered the mind of those who had been intimately acquainted with such a man. Such an order would have been highly improper;* and far from having ever thought of it, I requested Marshal Schwartzenberg to give us a man of trust, to enable the Emperor to cross France without danger. Thus did I act in most difficult circumstances; I gave no other orders respecting Napoleon. I never saw Maubreuil at my hotel; he may have been there, like many more men, to receive orders. I know I gave orders to intercept the funds of the treasury, which were at last stopped at Blois; for there was not a crown remaining in the public chests. The money thus recovered, defrayed the first expences of the king.

"I repeat it again, I am not personally acquainted with M. Maubreuil; and even now, notwithstanding the assault he has committed on me, I am not sure whether I should know him again. I have behaved with kindness on this occasion, out of regard for the pressing solicitations of his family, who came to express their sorrow for his violence; and I have not thought myself obliged to answer the injurious allegations of a man, whose imprudence has rendered him dangerous to himself."'--pp. 426-8.

ART. V.-Des Destinées futures de l'Europe. Par l'auteur de la Revue Politique de l'Europe en 1825. 8vo. pp. 319. Bruxelles: Tarlier. 1828.

THE spirit of revolution, or rather the atheism that produced it, is as yet very far from being wholly extinguished in France. The Goddess of Reason is not indeed now publicly worshipped there under that name; she has, however, her disciples in abundance, consisting partly of the men who figured in the revolution, but chiefly of those who were educated in its schools, and corrupted in

* The text has—“ il eut eté inconvenable," a strange word in speaking of murder, but affording a striking criterion of political morality. "It is worse than a crine, it is a blunder," was the exclamation reported to have been elicited by the murder of the Duke of Enghien.