The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-03 00:00:00

An Old Soldier of the Great Napoleon.

The oldest of the parties who were engaged in the
Boulogne conspiracy of 1840, Etienne Laborde, died
yesterday, aged 84, in the Palace of the Luxem-
bourg, of which he was the Military Governor.
Laborde entered the service in 1804, was lieutenant
of Infantry in 1811, went through the German and
Russian campaigns, in which he was twice severely
wounded. He accompanied Napoleon to, Elba in
1814, returned with him to France, and was present
at Waterloo. He was placed on half-pay on the
Restoration. He returned, however, to active service
after the Revolution of 1830, with the command of
the 41st of the Line, and with it made the campaign
of Belgium. In 1834 he was named Commandant
de Place at Cambrai, but was placed on the retired
list in 1838. Known to be warmly attached to the
Bonapartist cause, he was readily admitted as one of
those appointed to execute the plot of 1840. He
was arrested with the rest of the conspirators at
Boulogne, and tried by the Chamber of Peers, when
he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment,
which the Government allowed him to complete
without difficulty in a maison de santj at Chaillot.
In the " order of the day" issued on board the
Edinburgh Castle by Prince Louise Napoleon allot-
ting their parts to his associates, Laborde was
designated as lieutenant-colonel in command of the
artillery of the centre ; and in the general instruc-
tions he was " chatted with the immediate forma-
tion of a battalion of volunteers whom he' was to
assemble on the Place d'Armes in front of the Hotel
de Ville of Boulogno."

In opening the case befere the Chamber of Peers
the Procureur du Roi said of Laborde that he
he had repeatedly declared he had " vowed to the
Emperor and his family a fidelity which would
only end with his life," and that this was the reason
why he joined in the plot which Prince Louis con-
cocted in London. "It was this connexion," con-
tinued the Procureur,—

4t Which placed him under the influence of the
Prince, who induced him to join in an enterprise,
the apparent motive of which he only told him,
though he concealed the real one ; and it was the
Prince who persuaded him to bring his uniform
with him, to put it on, and to use his weapons when
he gave him the order to do so."
The Procureur added :

4, There is one other circumstance concerning
Laborde which it is important to mention. He was
lieutenant-colonel of the 41st, and the conspirators
had substituted for the buttons of his uniform the
buttons of the 40th, in order to make the
coat of the lieutenant-colonel the same as
the coats in which the domestic seavants
of the conspirators were decked out. Laborde
says that he knew nothing of that change ;
but how believe him when we find it impos-
sible to explain satisfactorily how his lieutenant-
colonel's coat was found in the vessel, and how the
buttons could be changed ?"
Laborde was proposed as candidate for the Con-
stituent Assembly in 1848, but without success. He
was more fortunate in 1849, when he was elected in
the Charente Inferieure to the Legislative Assembly,
where he took his seat and voted with the majority
who were opposed to Republican institutions. On
the dispersion of the assembly on the 2d of Decem-
ber, 1851, he retired into private life, and some few
years after was appointed to the post which he held
till his death. He published many years ago an
interesting account (called Napoleon et sa Garde)
of the journey from Fontainebleau to Elba, the
Emperor's sojourn there, and his escape to France.
A few weeks ago he pereeived his end approaching.
The Emperor paid him a visit before his departure
for Plombieres. It was about this time that the
old man destroyed all the papers of a political cha-
racter, and said to be highly interesting, which-he
had in his possession.—Paris Correspondent of the
Times.