The Sun.
London, England, 1822-10-03 00:00:00

N.

, . .
from the Commissary of Police that the Mayor declares, that
he learned that M. Caffe never interfered with politicalmatters
before my arrival; it is from the Commissary .of Police that he
learns :;hat he adds, if indeed tie has added it—which I very
much doubt, seeing that no unofficial journal reports that
phrase—that-it is from that epoch that we ,are ,to date al/ that
is charged against hint : the paternal and administrative au-
: tliority is found, then, to be limited, to the police alone. Ques-
tion after question is asked as to whether after my arrival M.
Caffe pursued a different line of conduct ? The Mayor Of. San-
mur answers, according to the text of -the itionikur—" That
point can scarcely an within my Iznowledge. I have only been
Mayor since last October." (You know, then, that -he was
not Mayor at the time of my passing through the town: ) "Before
that period," he continues, I spent six months of the yearin
Paris, and the other six in the country." This, Sir,- is all that
the Mayor of Saumur has said, according to the Moniteur:
So that it is not his own opinion that he gives, but that of a
Commissary of Police; and in the opinion of that Commissary
of Police, there is nothing like that which vou attribute to him.
He does not point me out as the author of 'the riots at Saumur,
and in reply to the question relative to the change in M. Caffe
since my journey, the Mayor replies by stating how impossible
it is for him to form any judgment upon that point, owing to
his residence at Paris and in the country.
Thus, M. le Procureur-Gencral, in defiance of the most plain
facts, and the most positive declarations, you heap false asser-,
tions upon each other. You quote the Illayor of Saumur With
out mentioning any date,—and the Mayor of 1820 has not been
examined—and the Mayor of 1822 has not said a word like
those which you have placed in his mouth. I wish to refrain
from using any injurious expressions; but tell me what lan.
guage I ought to use in condemnation of such conduct ?
Yes, M. le Procureur-General, there were riots at Saumur
on the occasion of my arrival; and are you acquainted with the
cause of them ? It is to be found in the excitation which cer-
tain men had created in the minds of some striplings by the
calumnies which they were perpetually uttering against the real
friends of the, constitutional monarchy—it is to be found in
the conviction in which insinuations and assertions like yours
had produced in some mad youths, that I was the enemy of
the constitutional King, whom I respect, and of the charter,
which I defend. They thought, in the elThrvescence and cre-
dulity of their age, that they were performing a meritorious
action in announcing that they were ready to commit upon me
any culpable and illegal outrage.
Yes, M. le Procureur-General, there were riots at Saumur;
and there will unfortunately be riots—sometimes on one point
and sometimes on another—so long as it shall be the custom to
point out as factious individuals the defenders of the liberty
promised, and the order established, by the King himself—as
long as it shall be the custom to take advantage of the inexpe-
rience and party-spirit of our young soldiery in order to present
to them as guilty wretches whom they ought to strike down,
the best citizens, the most sincere friends of that Constitution
upon which- rests the security and the tranquillity of France.
There will be riots, and the real culprits will not be the young
madmen who deem themselves authorized to excite those riots
in profaning the cry of "Vive k Hof." The real culprits will
be the men who shall have sown absurd suspicions, idle alarms,
violent enmities against' those whom their lying denunciations
depict as conspirators. Legal processes, like that which you
have just conducted, M. le Procureur, are the sore causes of
mistrust, riot, and frenzy ; and if one of the individuals =Used
by you—and accused, on your own confession, without satis.,-
factory proof—were to be assassinated in any town of France
by frantic creatures, excited by your speech, that speech would
have served as the tocsin of murder, and the blood shed by
assassins would rest on your head alone.
! You continue, after this narrative, full of assertions which
have shewn to be false : you set out with these false asset.
tions to arrive at a conclusion which you had previously
fixed upon. " Ile lived happy," you say of one of the pri-
soners, " he lived happy till the day when B. Constant ar=
rived to seduce him."

This prisoner, whose moral qualities, whose amiable charac,
ter, whose virtue and benevolence have wrung etdogiums even
from you—this prisoner, examined and cross-examined by you
against me like all the prisoners and all the witnesses, has de.,
dared to you that he never saw me but once, and that in the
street, in the midst of an immense crowd.
When and where, then, have I seduced him ? Whore have I
seen him ? When have I spoken to him ? An assertion as posi-
tive as yours demands proofs ; and if there be no proofs, T
ask of you again what term of reprobation he deserves who has
condescended to make use of such an assertion ?
There is not, you say, legal proof ; but there Is moral proof.
I would gladly learn what you call moral proof. I have read
all your indictment, all your argument on the trial, and all the
summing up which crowns your work. And what have I found
in it ? lacts, which you have stated to exist without sliming the
slightest shadow of their existence ; —names, which you have
been perpetually repeating, without being able to make either
the accused whose hopes you awakened,- or the witnesses whose
fears you excited, repeat them. as you wished ;—stories of per:
sons in contumacy, the only revealers of pretended mysteries
which their-absence left you at liberty to explain as you liked;
—rumours taken from libels the most scandalous, and with
which the ear of justice had not yet been polluted. This is
what you call moral proof : peruse again the treatises on the
law regarding suspected persons, and the report upon the revo
lutionary government : the invention of what you call moral
proof is not a merit that belongs to you.
' I have replied to your allegations, and I have sheen them
all to be kalso.

You mid that I was the cause 'of the riots at Saumur, and
cited the Mayor of that town to prove it. T have proved to you,
by the letter of the Mayor himself, that so far from being the
cause of the riots, I was the person against whom they were
directed.

You called those riots revolutionary. I have proved to you
that they were the effect of strong anti-revolutionary excitation,
You said that 1 had seduced a man, in whose eulogium his
reputation and his misfortunes make it a duty in me to join.
That catimable individual, who is on that very account worthy
of credit, 'tad you that he never saw me but once, and then in
the streets.'

Thus all your scaffolding has given way ; this new engine,
which has been set at work against me, has entirely failed, and
in point of fact you have not had leisure to combine skilfully
my journey through Saumur in October, 1820, with an at-
tempt made in February, 1822. Time failed you ; you rec-
koned upon something else : I have told you what it was upon
which you reckoned ; you were too late, and in despair of your
cause, you made use of your last weapon.
But that last weapon, the Mayor of Saumur whom yon in-
voked, and the prisoner to whose moral character yOu pay re-
spect, have broken to pieces in your hands. Now, M. le Pro-
cureur-General, allow me to ask what advantage you can ex-
pect to -accrue to the King, to France, and even to yourself,
from the dreadful system which you are adopting—from that
violence in the exercise of functions which require, above every
thing, calmness and impartiality—from that thirst of vengeance
which your slightest expressions betrayed—from . those move-
ments which your panegyrists call oratorical, and which dis-
cover an effervescence of passion ill-suited to the character of a
magistrate.
_ _ _

In point of fact, • hen you declare that you are not competent
to accuse us— (a strange declaration to be made en passant,
when all the rest of your, speech is a thundering accusation)—
and that you express in writing a wish that you were so—(oh
si je l'etais )—I ask of you what is the meaning of such an ex-
clamation, if it be not the expression ,of impatient regret that
you cannot hurl destruction according to your wish upon a
sufficiently large number of heads ? If you-had been corn.
petent, what would you have done ? Surely, you would not
accuse us with much greater impetuosity than that which you
have already displayed. Such is your ardour, that, incompetent
as you declare yourself to he, you usurp the functions of an ac-
cuser. What, then, are those of which you regret the want ? I wish
not to name them. All who have read that famous exelama-
tion—name them in terms sufficiently strong ; and it is in your
hands that is placed the formidable power of accusing, de-
nouncing, and pursuing to destruction. A blind zeal has,
from the first, misled you in this deplorable' career. A furious
resentment has conducted you from excess to excess. You
are offended at the' censure which the deputies cast on your
inexcusable conduct.. You have not considered who were
the deputies. You have not reflected that none of those who
proposed to summon you to the bar were among the number of
'the individuals attacked by you. The feeling of our dignity
taught us to be silent. The men whocalled foryour impeachme t
were disinterested as to the question. France is accustomed to
admire their talent, to revere their character, to approve their
moderation..-The names of MM. Royer Collard, St. Aulaire,
Tripier, command respect and confidence; and yet, in speak.
ing of such men, wounded vanity dictated to you this language—
The accusations which some men have dared to direct
against us." Have dared ! Monsieur le Procureur-General,'
what delirium has seized you ? What a gratuitous in-

PltiCt SEV:ENPENCE.

! suit -to the Representative Power with which the "King
himself has been:.pleased to divide the right of fixing
the destinies ;of France ? Have .dared ! What ! The De, ,
puties have the right of accusing the Ministers., and when
127 of their number propose to exercise the same right
against you, dbes their insolence astonish you.?. What the
President of the Council-would not say, for the President re-,
-spects the authority of the Chamber—what the Keeper of the
Seals; your Chief, would not say, for he knows • our constitu-
tional rights=you, the Procureur-General, the creature of the
Ministers, holding an office revocable at their pleasure, have
the hardihood to say !
Such d' degree of --extravagance has,- in one respect, claims to
a kind- of indulgence. A man so carriectaway by passion cannot
be regarded-as perfectly responsible for. his acts. But I pity the
Accused who haveadversariesourd the .Monarchy which has in,
struments; such as you!. •••

Deceive note M. le Procitreur-Genetal, either yourself or
those who Walk in the same path with you. France abhors your
warmth, and shudders with horror at your doctrine*.
She shudders with horror at those- tnotttl proofs which dis-
pense with legal proofs, (and which were employed as in-
struments of destruction in every proscription of the Re-
volution. it' was by moral proofs, in defect of legal ones,•
that the. massacres -of 1790 were- peryettated. France 'bud-
der• with - horror at' the very thpuit of , extortmt deposi-
tions to obtain the names of those whore safety Oovernment-
wishes to compromise, -and of The pursuit and incarceration of
witnesses wile- give testimony different to what is commanded
them. France views-with abhorrence those threats to advocates
who are censured for taking down the terms of declarations made
in their presenc'e, and who are only permitted to continue their
tutelary functions under the cruel prospect of suspension and
ruin.

France shudder's with hotter at those attacks which have
been made on the law of defence—at that limitation of 3 days
for the defence of forty accused; with the declaration that not
half a day more could be granted them. Thus the defenders
are placed on the bed of Procrustes; especially if, after the
term is once arbitrarily fixed, six hours more cannot be given
them, even though the lives of those they defend may be de•
pending upon the mere explanation of a single point more.
I check myself, M. le ProcureurAGeneral. Reflections are
crowding from every side around me. But in whatever manner
I might give them expression, they would not be felt by you ;
and I have no occasion to give it them in order to render them
felt by the whole of France.
You attacked me. In answering you, I have only made use
of a right I possess. In making use of that right, I have ful-
filled,a duty. I have shown how you wished to surround my
character by odious suspicions and by perfidious accusations.
Men will judge from what you have attempted against me, of
what you are capable of having done against others.
I have explained myself with freedom, without transgressing
the limits of the most legitimate defence. I have done my
duty in repelling a gratuitous aggression, and I have been able
to do it without attacking the magistracy—for you have your-
self declared yourself to be incompetent. You have, then,
spoken without authority. It is to the individual without au-
thority,. according to his own avowal, that I have replied.
(Signed) BENJ. CONSTANT, Deputy of La Sarthe.
Paris, Sept. 1822.