The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-07 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 7, 1867.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

TRIAL OF M. GIRARDIN.

(FROM ova OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, WEDNESDAY EVENING.

On this Ash-Wednesday and day of the eclipse
of the sun coincidences which have not
failed to strike Parisian quidatnics— M. Emile
de Cirardin appeared in the Sixth Chamber
of Correctional Police to take his trial for
a political libel. From an early hour the
avenues of the court were besieged by people
anxious to get in. The few provided with tickets
were admitted ; all others found great difficulty in
piercing through the outer lines of circwnvallation,
and if, by means of adroit representations, they
penetrated further and reached the stairs leading
to the court, or even the ante-room adjoining
it, they were in few instances better off.
To the demand, often proffered in an angry tone,
"Is it not a public court (" the imperturbable
answer of one simple-minded official, who looked
only to the substance of his instructions and
troubled not his head about the theory that all
trials in France are public, although press trials
must not be reported, was, "Not to-day." And yet
it must in justice be said that the court was ulti-
mately as full as it could well have been con-
sistently with the orderly conduct of the trial.
Nearly a third of the sitting and standing room in
the not very large chamber in which the court sits
was occupied by advocates in their robes. All
other persona fortunate enough to obtain admii-
sion did so only by favour of the presiding judge,
but it cannot be said that he distributed his favours
in an exclusive spirit, for a very large proportion
of the closely packed audience consisted of persons
notoriously not sympathisers with the prosecution.
M. de Girardin obtained admission for Madame de
Girardin, his son, M. de Girardin, jun., Monsieur
Clement Duvernois, and two other redartears of
La Liberti ; and 1 observed in court three opposi-
tion deputies, MM. Pelletan, Picard, and Glais-
Bizoin. M. Emile de Girardin appeared at the
bar alone as he had undertaken to do. M.
Serriere, his printer, was assisted by M. Allow,
the bdtonnier. The judges, four in number,
did not take their seats till half-past 11, and
then, to the great disappointment of the
expectant audience, the president, M. Delesvaux,
addressing M. de Girardin, said he had better
retire and come back at 1 o'clock, as there were
several cases to be disposed of before his. M. de
Girardin, M. Serriere, and M. Allow, who, of
course, had no fear of losing their places, took ad-
vantage of this hint to pass an hour and a half in
a better atmosphere than that of the crowded
court ; but nobody else budged from their sitting
or standing room, as the case might be, for fear
of not being able to get back to it. The whole
audience, therefore, remained patient but unwilling
listeners to a number of ordinary police cases—
cases of drunken assaults on the police for the
most part, which were disposed of with extraordi-
nary rapidity.

When, after these light farces, the real play
which the audience had come to see began it was
half-past 1 o'clock.

In answer to the usual preliminary questions,
M. Emile de Girardin, after giving his name and
surname, said he was sixty-one years of age. The
president then said :—You are accused of having
excited to hatred and contempt of the Emperor's
government, in an article of the Liberte, headed
"Les Meilleures Destinies." Do you admit being
the author of the article 2*—l do.

Do you desire now to offer any explanation con-
cerning that article am in the hands of the
court.

But you have the choice either to speak now or
presently after the Advocate-General shall have
made his requisitoile. Perhaps asyou are unassisted
by counsel you would do better to wait.—On the
contrary, M. le President, I would prefer to make
a statement now.

M. de Girardin then said (so far as I can report
his words from memory) :

The statute under which lam indicted sanctions in the
most absolute manner the right of discussion and cen-
sure of the acts of government. It is for hav-
ing exercised that right that I am now here
before you, sitting on the same bench where have
sat before me two members of the French Aim.
demy, the Count de Montalembert and M. Provost
Paradol ; a member of the Corps Legislatif, M. EugiMe
Pelletan ; a great thinker, M. Proudhon ; and an emi-
nent historian, N. Vscherot. I wish to say, upon my
honour, that I am not guilty of the offence imputed to me.
Even if the result of my article should be to excite to
hatred and contempt of the government, I did not write it
with that intention. Not only my solemn asseveration
but my antecedents negative the accusation. For I took
so large a part in accelerating the movement which founded
the Emperor's government that I should incur an immense
responsibility if I were to contribute to its fall.

The Advocate-General Lepelletier then rose to
support the accusation. He is a rather young
man gifted with no oratorical power, and opened
his case in an unimpassioned and off-hand manner
just as if it were of no more importance than the
small misdemeanour affairs which he is daily in
the habit of pleading. He began by regretting
that M. de Girardin had not given before M.
Genet, the judge of instruction, the assurance
ho now made, that he had no intention
to excite to hatred and contempt of go-
vernment. He had declined to make any state-
ment whatever in answer to the question of
that magistrate. At the same time he had great
difficulty in believing that M. de Girardin, who
was one of the most accomplished journalists in
the world, and knew better than most men the
exact value of words, could have written the
article in question without being aware of its
manifest tendency. Tho Advocate-General, then,
in a monotonous, indistinct voice, read the
'incriminated article through. He admitted
in the fullest degree the right of discussion
and censure which M. de Girardin claimed
to exercise ; but he denied that the article now
before the court was in any rational sense confined
within the widest limits of " discussion and cen-
sure." It was an "attack" of the most violent,
' and, he must add, the moat unjust description
upon the whole course of the Emperor's govern-
ment from 1851 to 1867. Its clear intention was
Ito represent to the public that the Emperor's go-
vernment was the worst that could be, both as re-
gards foreign and home policy. It gave the go-
vernment credit for no one good thing, and its
unfairness was such that it did not even allude
to that great and manifest benefit the treaty
of commerce and the establishment of free
trade. Under these circumstances he felt it
unnecessary to enter upon any long arguments,

• A trthelation of this article appeared in the Express
of March 2.