The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-12 00:00:00

TRIAL OF THE ANGERS REBELS.

The trial of the Angers rebels commenced at
Angers, before the Assize Court of the Maine and
Loire, on Oct. 8. It appears from the proceedings,
as far as at present reported, that the affair of
August 27 was even more serious than the accounts
given by the local journals at the time represented.
A number of persons implicated in a minor degree
were tried some days since by the Tribunal of Cor-
rectional Police, and sentenced to short terms of
imprisonment. The more serious offenders are now

brought to trial before a jury. No less than 59
men were placed at the bar on this occasion, and
there are in prison 35 more, awaiting their trial as
soon as the present case is over. According to the
indictment, it appears that Angers was invaded on
the night of the 27th August, by a band of about
600 men, and, had it not been for the energy and
skill of General Angell de Kleinfeld, who, at the
head of the very small garrison, surprised and de-
feated tjie insurgents, the town would have been
in their power. The two leaders of the insurrec-
tion are said to be one Secretain, the political

organiser, and Attibert, his principal lieutenant,
and the military chief of the expedition. Atti-
bert is described as a man of action, resolute, vio-

lent, and implacable. It is alleged that he seduced
his followers by the promise of pillage, and the indict-
ment charges that pillage was the main object of the
movement. In support of this viemit is stated that
the insurgents were armed for hstrrsebreaking more
than for fighting, many of them carrying monsieg-
neurs, picklocks, hammers, screws, &c. It is, how-
ever, to be observed, in fairness to the prisoners,
that among many specific acts reproached against
in the indictment, no single instance of robbery is
brought forward. They energetically repudiate
any intention to pillage, and, while admitting most
of the facts of which they are accused, say that the
accusation has put into their mouths words excit-
ing to pillage which they never used. The follow-
ing report of the interrogatories put to the two
principal prisoners will give a correct idea of the
nature of the case :
President—First prisoner, rise. When you were in-
terrogated during the instruction you refused to answer.
Do you still refuse to answer ? Secretain—l refused to
answer about my journey to Paris.
Q. On the contrary, you did answer on that point,
but you refused to answer as to the subject matter of the
indictment. Do you persist in your silence ? Come,
now, where were you going in the evening of August
27 ?—A. I was going home.
Q. Were you armed 9—A. No, sir.
Q, There were found upon you half a kilogramme of
gunpowder and some ammunition 9—A.. That is true ;
I had such things, but they were for use against the pre-
sent Government, and not against the town of Angers.
My intention was to overthrow the existing power, and
to substitute a democratic and social government. ,
Q. You mean to say that you are a political conspi-
rator, and not •a thief 9—A. Precisely so. I conspire,
and I wish to overturn the Government, but neither I
nor my friends have any desire to pillage.
Q. flow did you intend to conduct your attack ?—A.
That is my secret.
Q Why did you fix upon the night of the 27th for the
rising ?—A. Oh ! I must keep that to myself.
Q. Are you affiliated to the Marianne Society I—A.. I
know nothing about that. For the rest, that pretended
society cannot be of much consequence now that its
pass-words are found out.
Q. Since you talk in that way, do you know what is
the object of the Marianne 9—A. Not the least in the
world. I repeat to you that I know nothing about this
Marianne.
Q. You say that you wanted to overturn the Govern.
ment ?—A. Yes, and to substitute new laws for those
which now exist.
Q. And who was to have made these laws ? Your-
self ?—A. Doubtless it was we—ourselves alone—that
would have made the laws.
Q. What did you go to Paris for 9—A. I went there
to confer with my friends about the organisation of the
new Government, and to draw up the new laws.
Q. Where did you lodge when you were in Paris ?
A. That is my secret.
Q. Did you bring back a pass-word from yoUr friends ?
—A. I have nothi❑g to say about that.
Q. You refuse to say whether you were the bearer of
any instructions ?—A. Yes ; I refuse. •
Q. After your return you were seen in a wine shop
giving instructions 9—A. I don't think that can be
proved.
Q. Did you not go to the Ponts-de-Cei 9—A. No, Sir.
Q. But, at least, you went to the carriages ?—A. No;
that is false information.
Q. Did you not, before your departure, have an ani-
mated conversation in Jean Sarrazin's wine shop with
Attibert and Bazile, and did you not receive a purse of
money to pay the expenses of your journey ?—A. No.
I received no money.
Q. We now ask you whether the instruments now on
that table are arms such as men would use who mean to
fight honourably 9—A.. The insurgents were obliged to
make use of whatever they could put their hands upon,
not as aggressors, but in order to resist the opposition
that we might meet with.
Q. What ! You were not aggressors, and you came
into the town in the middle of the night ! Were the
authorities of Angers, then, the aggressors ?—A. We
had no intention to effect a blood revolution ; but we
could not help supposing it possible that we might be
charged at the point of the bayonet. We were therefore
under the necessity of being ready to defend ourselves.
Q. That's a curious way of reasoning, especially when
we consider that all your fire-arms were loaded, and that
you escorted a waggon loaded with ammunition. Were
you not at the head of the movement ?—A. No ; and,
moreover, we had no need of any chief ; we were all
friends.

Q. But are you not the person designated as Serjeant
Secretain ?—A. Oh, yes, but that signifies nothing. I
was formerly a serjeant in the army.
Q. Did you not say that the social revolution was
proclaimed ?—A. Yes.
The Procureur-General—You wished, you say, to
eiLange the Government and replace the existing laws by
new ones. What laws did you mean to substitute ?
—A. Dame, Sir, you see that when society is in such a
degenerate state--
The President. What ! you dare to say that we are in
a degenerate state when France is more than ever at
the head of the nations, frith by her progress in every-
thing and by the glory of her arms ?
The prisoner (with an ironical movement of the head.)
Oh !

The President (warmly).—We know too well that the
success of our arms distresses you, and that in the dregs
of society in which you move it is possible to find men
who have the courage to desire the defeat of our soldiers
—men who rejoice in some checks which we may have
suffered. The affair of June 13, before the Malakhoff,
revived your hopes, but be well assured that you are
the only people who will tell France that she has de-
generated, and I, for my part, will not endure that you,
even at that bar where you stand, shall repeat such
language Sit down instantly. (Addressing himself to
the next prisoner.)—You, Attibert, were arrested ?
Attibert. That is to say, I gave myself up on the fol-
lowing Wednesday after my lodgings had been searched.
Q, You were seen in the ranks of the insurrection.
Did you not lead it ? What part did you take in it ?
A. I took part in it, it is true, but an any other citizen
might have done. Everybody knows that our object
was to overturn the Government.
Q. And that is why you marched into Angers in the
middle of the night ?—A. No doubt.
Q. You were at Trelaz6 when the door of the' gendar-
merie guardhouie was forced open?—A. I was not there;
I arrived at the moment when the people were taking
up arms. They went afterwards to the Presbytery,
where they did not enter, and then to the bourg of
Trelaze. I was at the Boreille gate, but I had no arms.
We divided ourselves. Some went to the Grands Car-
reaux. "The Mayor has arms," it was said, "we must
go and look for them." His wife was made to get up,
and she said that the arms were in the secretary's office.
As the secretary appeared to be in no hurry to rise, I
knocked several times at his door, an a gun was
handed out to me. I said, " Who will have the gun ?"
and a band was at once put forward to take it.
Q. By what right did you go to the houses of peace-
able inhabitants l—A. We did it, as Secretain has told
you, in case we found ourselves resisted, or even attacked.
We desired to change the Government.
Q. And you did this of your own private authority ?
A. Yes, of our own private authority—to replace the Go-
vernment by a democratic and social one.
There are an immense number of witnesses to be
examined, and it is expected that the case will
last several days. Most of the prisoners are
workers in the slate quarries, and their usual
wages are 7 francs a day.

UNIVERSITY AND CLERICAL.

OXFORD, OCT. 1

DIVINITY LECTURES.—The Margaret Professor of
Divinity (Dr. Heurtley, canon of Christ Church) pro-
poses to begin a course of lectures on the Creed, on
Tuesday, the 23d inst. Gentlemen who wish to attend
are requested to call on the professor on Monday, the
22d inst., between the hours of eleven and one. The
lectures are open to those who have passed the examina-
tion for the degree of 8.A., in the school of Literati
,
' Rumaniores. Two of the lectures (the subject being the
creeds of the Western Church) will be delivered at the
Clarendon tke one on Thursday, the 25th inst., the
other
on- Saturday, the 27th, at one o'clock. These
will De Opeo to any
one who may wish to attend.
SEcoND PUBLIC EZAMINATION.—The senior proctor
will receive the names of candidates for the second pub-
lic examination in Michaelmas term, either from them-
selves or their tutors, at New College, on 'Wednesday,
the 17th inst. from 2 o'clock till 4 - Thursday, the ISth,
from 1 o'clock till 3; Friday, the 19th, from 1 o'clock
till 4. Each candidate must give in :-1. His matricu-
lation paper. 2. The testamur of moderators, or of the
examiners in the school of Literal liumaniores. 3.
Certificates from two professors or pra3lectors. 4. A
list signed with his name upon the printed forms issued
for that purpose, of the subjects and books in which he
offers himself to be examined.

A MATERIAL GUARANTEE.--FrOM an advertkement
which has appeared in a contemporary, we learn that
"a respectable married couple without a family" wish
to adopt "a female infant from its birth." The-respect-
able couple, however, intimate that "200/, will be re-
quired as a proof that it is not of plebeian birth, and a
guaranty that it shall never know that the advertisers
are not its parents,"