The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-29 00:00:00

DEFENCE OF LAMARTINE.

(Continued from The Sun of Wednesday.)
TENTH ACCUSATION.
I have held relations with Sobrier, with Blanqui,
with Cabet, with Itaspail, with Barbes, with De Flotte
(the naval lieutenant), and with several other men who
have since been accused of conspiracy or of treason
against the National Assembly.
It is true. These relations which they have
charged upon me as a crime, constitute, in fact, one
of the principal titles through which I lay claim to
the approbation of all good citizens, for having aided
them, in this manner, with all my efforts, to traverse,
without catastrophe, the most difficult and perilous
days of a revolution. The explanation of those
mysteries is discoverable in the date of the different
occurrences. It is not since the meeting of the Na-
tional Assembly that I have had these interviews
with the accused ; it is during the first days which
followed the Revolution of February ; it is during
those times, when there was no other authority at
Paris except the individual authority of some men
powerful in agitating, or in appeasing the multitudey•
I should have fallen short in all the duties which the
extremity of circumstances imposed upon me,
if I had neglected to see, and to influence in a
loyal manner, through the medium of the most
intimate political conversations, if I had failed to en-
deavour to rally around the honest, moderate, prac-
tical, and constitutional Republic, those men who were
capable of aiding in its loss or in its salvation. I
should wish, for the sake of these men, who were
then well-intentioned, and for the sake also of my
own character, that my accusers had been present at
these interviews, and had listened to these conversa-1
tions. There was nothing in any one of them which
was not in quittance of all their acts and of all their
thoughts at the moment. 'These men aided, they did
not impede, the action of the Government. The at-
tempts in which they have since been either impli-
cated or convicted, and their actual situation at the
present moment as parties accused, will not render
me unjust towards them. For the rest, behold the
history of these relations, wholly unnatural though
they may at the first moment appear.
.1 had been fortunate enough to save the life of
BARBEE under the last Government. The return of a
favour like this to those who are absent is better than
the remembrance of a life which has been saved, when I
that remembrance is numbered among the consolations I
of exile. On emerging from his prison Barbes at
once came to me to offer an expression of his grati-
tude. I persuaded him to employ the authority
which his long exile had given him over his party to
restrain that party within the limits of a Republic
which was in reality the organization and not the
subversion of society. I found him ready to enter
into these engagements. He, as well as Sobrier,
displayed remarkable courage on the 17th of March
at the Hotel de Ville. Subsequently Barbes began
insensibly to alienate himself from me, and to with-
draw from any participation in my operations. He
deserved at least to be regretted.
DE FLOTTE and several of his friends possessed con-
siderable influence over the clubs. They sought at
that time to avail themselves of the power arising
from these reunions in order to protest against the
convocation of the National Assembly. Then it was
that I convinced the leaders of the clubs that the
nation alone could impart strength to the Republic.
I found more moderation among these men than
their names would have led me to conjecture.
RASPAIL addressed me in the language of one who
was fascinated rather by theories than by sedition
His opinions seemed to be conscientiously entertained.
He endeavoured, in his journal and in his Club, to
ameliorate the character of the Revolution, and the
manners of the Republic.
CADET I had known during a long period. His
speculations were rather dreams than conspiracies.
The forgetfulness which he has evinced in responding
to a generous proceeding by an act of passion, shall
not render me in return his accuser. He will labour
in vain to deteriorate the soul of the people and to
exasperate the Republic.
BLANQUI came one morning to deliver himself up
to me voluntarily at the very time when it was pre-
tended that he was striving to compass my overthrow
and my assassination. I then conversed with him
j,,cosely ; for I can never credit the notion of
poignards creeping into the hands of those whose souls
can wield the weapons of intellect. Blanqui inspired
me with more interest than alarm. In him was re-
cognised one of those natures which are overcharged
with the electricity of the times—men who
experience a craving for ceaseless commotions, as the
only means of acquiring consolation. He had the
disease of revolutions. Of this fact he himself was
perfectly conscious. His physiognomy was marked
by the traces of prolonged sufferings, both moral and
physical ; but those vestiges of misfortune bore the
character of sadness rather than of evil passions. his
manner of talking was peculiar for its delicacy. Ilia
spirit had considerable expansion. He seemed to m 1
like a man adrift in chaos, who appeared to be search"
ing vigilantly for a gleam of light, or for a path
along which he might grope his way across the vast-
ness of the surrounding confusion. had I possessed
the opportunity of seeing him more frequently, I
should not have despaired of his becoming at last
most useful to the well-being of the Republic. As it
was, I only saw him once.
In reference to SORRIER, behold the occasion of our
interview Among his acquaintances was a young
man, whom I already k new to be a sincere Repub-
lican of the old school. This young man introduced
Sobrier -to me on the 27th of February. Sobrier
claimed the office of the Prefecture of Police,
in the name of the people, who, according to his ac-
count, had nominated him to the discharge of those
functions. I informed him that the Provisional Go-
vernment had already selected another Republican,
and that the Republic should not, for any reason
whatever, commence its existence by giving itself to
anarchy in naming two administrators to one branch
of administration. Sobrier left me in dudgeon.
Some time afterwards I learnt that he was a young
man of an honourable family in Dauphine, the pos-
sessor of an ample fortune, which he employed in
alleviating the miseries of his neighbourhood; that
his head, heated with enthusiasm, was inflamed by all
the winds of democracy ; that he associated and min-
gled together religious ideas and revolutionary ideas;
that his political optimism rendered his ideas conta-
gious with the multitude ; that he excited the popu-
lace with facility, and that ho unconsciously directed
them to evil. I desired to see him, and my wish was
frequently gratified. He was the inspiration of a
club, and the editor of a journal called the Commune
pis, My ideas and my candour appeared
to exercise a powerful attraction over his ,intellect.
He laboured loyally and disinterestedly to propagate
the regular Republic among his associates. He
fought courageously against the dictatorship on the
17th of March, and declared himself definitively for
the sovereignty of the National Assembly. " But, it
is said, he afterwards opened at No. 16, in the Rue de
Rivoli, I know not what den of armed demagogues,
and you yourself caused him to be supplied with arms by
the Minister of War." This charge, so often adduced
against me, is altogether false. Behold the first sen-
tence of a note which Sobrier remitted to me when
I was seated upon my bench in the National Assem-
bly, at the very moment when the search was under
discussion :—" Citizen! Caussidierc, in his deposition,
says that he forwarded to me two hundred muskets in
compliance with a letter under your signature. This
is altogether a misstatement. Behold what was really
the case;" and he thereupon recounts in the fullest and
clearest manner possible the means and the men through
whose instrumentality he had obtained these two
hundred muskets for the purpose, he said, of defend-
ing the Government against a Communist insurrec-
tion. Abut the same time I received from Vin-
cennes a copy of the Ministerial order virtue of
which these muskets were delivered to s_iobrier—a
document which show:d that I was a total., stranger
I
to this deliverance of al.'ns with which am so
severely reproached.
Behold the document:— la •
Direction of the Artillery of A arms-
No. 378.
Copy conformable to the order of Eteeutio n.
Paris, the 14th Aprils j f '4B.
My dear Commandant,
In obedience to the Ministerial order of tin: g day,
will cause to be transported during the ens, wing
night :-
Ist. To the Prefecture of
600 percussion guns ;

3,000 packets of cartridges for percussion
guns, balls of 0,0163 with capsules.
2d. To No. 16, Rue Rivoli, to be transmitted to
Citizen Sobrier.
400 percussion guns ;
3,000 packets of cartridges for percussion
guns, balls of 0,0163 with capsules.
The Lieut.-Colonel, Director during the interim.
(Signed) C. LEJEUN E.
These two pieces are now before the public. Never-
theless, if I hare not this wrong upon my conscience,
I might have acted thus with perfect innocence, and
I will tell you wherefore : from the 24th of Feb-
ruary to the 16th of April we had no public force of
a legal character to protect either order, the streets
or property. The Government—threatened con-
tinually, both in its individual and collective capacity
with risings, with manifestations, with imprison-
ments, and with assassinations—was compelled to
employ, in the defence of its cause, forces, whether
voluntary, personal, or even illegal. Each of us had
his army of friends and of clients as they had of old
in ,Rome during the times of the civil wars. On
certain nights, and under certain circumstances, the
Hotel of Foreign Affairs was transformed into a
camp. In case of attack, Sobrier placed himself
at the disposal of my political friends. Ile
had, according to his own account, between
five and six hundred men devoted to him, who would
hasten to an appointed rendezvous at the first signal.
We were then, be it remembered, in a state of legiti-
mate defence, for in our persons we defended both order
and society. It is a good time truly to discover
scruples as to the legality of placing a few arms at the
disposal of citizens without title, when we had a dic-
tatorial Government, four hundred thousand men at
the gates, and the law in our hands I
Some time previous to the election I ceased to
have any further communication with Sobrier. He
displayed in his journal the list of candidates adopted
by the Reform and the Luxembourg, from which
catalogue my name was excluded, and which com-
prised only the ,workmen of the Luxembourg and
some names of political men of another colour than
mine. General Courtais afterwards came to inform
me that Sobrier held an armed club in the Rue
Rivoli, and he entreated me to use my former
influence over him for the purpose of persuading him
to dissolve this club, without which eventuality we
should be compelled to disperse it by violence. I did
as he desired. Sobrier, however, followed this advice
too slowly. Since that occasion I have had no rela-
tion whatever with Sobrier. I learnt that his name
had become an object of exaggerated terror in Paris
Until the morrow of the 16th of May I heard nothing
further respecting him, when upon that occurrence
he was conducted to Vincennes.

Behold the whole of my complicity with Sobrier !
It is the complicity of reason with excess, of calmness
in thought, with the whirl of opinions I
Many are astonished that I should have had inter-
views with men who appeared only yesterday from
the midst of the public dangers, and who were then
in some measure a means towards the restoration of
safety and tranquillity. I reply as I have already re-
plied in the tribune of the National Assembly, al-
though in somewhat different language—" What !
Citi2ens! You wish me to emerge from the volcanic
crater of a revolution, and you do not wish me to
have any contact with the lava How, let me ask
you, could I, by any possibility, have directed it, if I
had not touched it? And these men—they are the
Revolution itself ! Have you forgotten that ?"