The Sun.
London, England, 1847-08-27 00:00:00

trieningMfl

LO N lON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 1847.

On Tuesday evening the Duke DE CHOISEUL
TRASLIN committed suicide while confined in the
prison of the Luxembourg. This, we take it, is a
conclusive testimony that the deceased nobleman was
in truth the murderer of the mother of his nine chil-
dren. He has escaped the avenging hand of Justice,
he has hurried before a more awful Tribunal than
that of human authority, he has plunged into the
mysterious abyss of Death, after imbruing his hands
in his own blood and in the blood of his wretched
wife. The departure of a miscreant covered with a
guilt so tremendous must make one shudder, but
cannot inspire any right-thinking man with in-
clination t 3 follow the spirit of the dead with :ex-
pressions of indignation. There is a sanctity even
in the death-chamber of the assassin—even over the
cadaverous corpse of the suicide—which hushes the
voice of wrath, and reminds us that the power of man
is impotent before the majesty of the grave. Years
hence the tale will be told how the Duchess DE
CHOISEUL PRASLIN was killed by the hand of her
husband ; the sleeping apartment in the hotel Praslin
will possibly be shown as "a place a-: cursed" to those
who are yet unborn ; the print of the bloody hand
upon the wall will tell of the struggle of the poor
lady in her last agony, and will attest the spot in
which the deed was perpetrated, like the stains upon
the floor of Holyrood, or the broken flag-stones in
the dungeon of Berkeley Castle. With ourselves,
however, this horrible occurrence must be associated
with very different considerations. The self-destruc-
tion of the Peer who, within the last fortnight, has
rendered the name of an august family infamous, and
covered its survivors with shame and desolation,
makes it incumbent upon us to turn from the imme-
diate actors in this domestic tragedy, and scrutinize
the conduct of those persons who were morally
responsible for the life of the accused and for the
qexkliation of his crime in the event of his conviction.
that the Government has been most culpable in
permitting the Duke DE PRASLIN to escape the igno-
minies of a trial and execution is beyond all denial.
It were an insult to the common sense of the
people for the authorities to pretend that
the suicide was a casualty which occurred
wholly and entirely without their connivance.
Every circumstance that has transpired since the
fatal morning of Wednesday, the 18th instant, has
,betrayed the willingnesa of the Government, or
rather of the subordinate officers of the Government,
to .facilitate that catastrophe which has just deprived
the .ducal murderer of an existence which had be-
come loathsome and unendurable. We cannot, of
course,. distinctly assert that poisons were con-
veyed to the Duke DB PRASLIN at any direct instiga-
tion from a high quarter, or that the transmission of
that instrument of death was under the express per-
mission of his official guardians, but we must most
plainly and emphatically pronounce our conviction
that indirectly the authorities have been accomplices
in the suicide—that opportunities must have been
intentionally afforded—that precautions must have been
wilfully foregone—that efficient remedies must have
been purposely neglected. These inferences are ine-
'vita& from the facts that have transpired. Why, of
itself, is it not a most suspicious particular, that
during his life, when in confinement, the Duke DE
CHOISEUL PRASLIN is treated as one who had swal-
lowed laudanum, and after his decease it is disco-
vered that he had saved himself from the bar and
the scaffold by a dose of arsenic ? Antidotes
are administered for laudanum, when they should
have been antidotes for arsenic, and yet some of the
-.most distinguished physicians in Paris were
summoned to the aid of the criminal in the
prison of the Luxembourg How is this be-
wildering and anomalous fact accounted for ?
Why the Journal des Wats endeavours to explain
th? circumstances away by an extravagant assertion
that a phial-bottle was discovered in the dressing.
rn of the deceased assassin, containing the dregs
of al poisonous draught compounded of arsenic and
lauditnum together ! This is a mere prevarication, a
mere quibble to hide the damning complicity of those
who si'iould have appeased the popular indignation by
vhiting upon the bead of the Duke DE PRASLIN the
penalties of a crime which would inevitably have
brou,lht the head of a coalheaver or an artizan to the
axe 01' the guillotine.
That the occupants of the Château should abhor
the notion of the execution of a Peer so noble
by birth .and position as the Gentleman
Bed-
chamber to Madame la Duches the Bed-
'Olitt.EadNs, is very
conceivable. They must instinctively e y have shrunk
from such a _supposed profatzstionovfthe aristocracy.
In yielding, however, to
'lance, the Government of France has n involved itself
sentimentiv of repug-
ave
in a grievous and perilous dilemma.
popular Theyindignation
di-
verted upon themselves that
-which was concentrated upon the suicide and
the murderer. Public opinion has been so far
rouse d in the metropolis, that it must by some
weans be appeased. The people are not to be
cajoled their fury ; their rage has been enkindled
by the many recent evidences of crime, and
licentiousness, and depravity among the higher
classes of the community. That crime, that li-
ie.entioustiess, that depravity, :mist be expiated,
far the consequences will be very sudden and
very appalling. France is not in the
trifled with; it has been trifled with of 17... d to be
‘te too re-
peatedly by the disclosureand of corruption, an,..4
lity, and perjury, debauchery, and bloodsbe
amomg its rulers and it
minions
of by the supreme
coming ;it has been hastenepdrinces. The crisis is
40 the loftier reVer
them. thank themselves for the Tuileries. I.Alt
whenet them
of tlatir schemes and their policy thel eonsequ,lnct 's
that a nation enforces retributionretributi. 3n s
remet nbe r
and in
ac is it
,evaded let them call to mind theiraav
Spain, in.. Switzerland, in Portugal,
procincts o the Tuileries ; let them bear in the
eon the u. 'inatural friendship contracted betwe ea
France and northern absolutism ; and let them,in
the hour of the. Ir more selfish remorse, curse the d. ty