The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-01 00:00:00

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's,or/tun ;60-44,414,3

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1846,

Scarcely has the guillotine been cleansed from the
blood of the regicide LECOMTE when Europe is
startled by the intelligence of another and yet more
dastardly attempt having been made at the azsassina-
tion of King LOUIS PIIILIPPE. Thanks, however,
to the interposition of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, that ve-
nerable life, which had already been preserved in six
perils of a similar character, has survived this most
odious and audacious endeavour. France has been
spared the infamy of a crime which, considering the
circumstances attendant upon this occasion, would
have rendered the murder of their SOVEREIGN an act
of atrocity altogether without any precedent. We con-
fess ourselves to be moved to sentiments more in-
tense and overwhelming than those of indig-
nation by this seventh attempt at the de-
struction of the extraordinary man now seated
on the throne of France. We are oppressed with
feelings of despondency at the intensity of that most
execrable ambition which lures murderer after mur-
derer from seclusion, and places in jeopardy
the existence, with the continuance of which
the destinies of nations are so intimately
and inextricably associated. We are aroused
with sentiments of abhorrence at those
wretched criminals who endeavour to gain a bloody
entrance into history, and inscribe their names upon
its pages in characters of immortal gloom. The in-
famous celebrity which has been conceded to RAVAIL-
LAC, FULTON, CADOUDAL, TYRREL, and that fraternity
of villains, appears to act as a species of incitement upon
every individual misanthropised by misfortunes, or
reckless of punishment. To people of morbid
imaginations, saturnine temperaments, audacity, to
men so agonised in mind, that oblivion would be
welcomed as an exquisite solace ; to men rendered
fanatical either by frenzy or impiety, and to others
goaded on to the commission of such monster crimes,
the execration of contemporaries, and the loathing of
an interminable posterity, appear to be objects of
mysterious attraction. Legislative wisdom is
baffled in its struggle to prevent the recurrence of
these terrible deeds. No punishment seems adequate
either as an expiation of the blood-guiltiness incurred,
or as a preventative of similar catastrophes.
Of this lamentable truth centuries of experience are
an incontestable evidence ; and supposing any indi-
vidual instance were requisite for its illustration,
none could be adduced more terribly to the point
than the one which has only just transpired. 'We
have already designated this attempted assassination
as more dastardly than the one perpetrated in the
forest of Fontainebleau ; we will go further, and
call it the most dastardly of the seven attempts at
the destruction of Louis Puturre—as the most das-
tardly attempt at regicide that has ever been recorded
in the annals of crime ! That our estimate is no
exaggeration the facts themselves testify.
These facts are, according to the most accurate of
the many versions which here been elicited by public
curiosity as follows :—ln accordance with a beautiful
custom preserved in the French metropolis, the
Citizen King, on the anniversary of the 29th of
July, from a window of the Tuileries, receives the
homage of his people. Somewhere about half-past
seven on 'Wednesday evening, the sixteenth anni-
niversary of that glorious revolution which had called
him to the throne of the greatest continental empire
on the globe, LOUIS PIIILLIPPE, surrounded by his
august family, presented himself on the Balcony
de l'llorloge. At that moment—a moment almost
sublime,from the recollections which it evoked—the or-
chestra performing the "Illarseillaise Hymn," the vast
concourse of Parisians assembled in the gardens of the
Tuileries, welcoming their SOVEREIGN with acclama-
tions, two explosions are heard in rapid succession.
The KING points in the direction from which
they have proceeded. His life has been attempted
for the seventh time—for the seventh time
it has been spared. The murderer is found skulking
behind the statue of Venus a la Tortue ; he is with
difficulty preserved from the infuriated multitude and
placed in confinement. These are the simple circum,
stances connected with this calamity, for a mos
grievous calamity it unquestionably is. Ilernem,

Bering the solemnity of the occasion during which
it transpired, remembering that the crime was at-
tempted in the midst of a concourse abandoned to
sentiments of joy, frivolity, and exultation, and that
the very moment of its commission was one of
national gratitude to that great national

benefactor whose existence was thus suddenly
threatened, we cannot surely be accused of
exaggeration in regarding this attempt as more dia-

bolical than the one in the Boulevards or the one a

Fontainebleau, and in regarding JOSEPH HENRI, if
possible, with greater indignation than ALIBAUD,

FIESCHI, or LECOMTE. If ever LOUIS PHILIPPE

required the sympathies of his fellow-men, it is at this

moment, for the diabolical act of HENRI is an assurance

to the French Monarch that his life is in jeopardy on
any and every occasion, in any or every situation.
. _

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He had previously been assailed on a hunting excur.

sion, in his passage to his Chambers of Legislature,
in the midst of a gorgeous staff of aides-de-camp ;
he has now been assailed on a gala day, in the midst

of amusement, surrounded by the frivolities of plea.

sure and recreation. That consideration is suffiCien'

to embitter the whole existence of this eminent and

good KING, alike illustrious for his misfortunes, his
wisdom and his generosity of heart. Nevertheless, the
criminal naust have the benefit of justice as much
as a prisoner guilty only of petty larceny.
The suspicious circumstance of the large sum of
gold found in his possessicn must be unravelled ;

everything in extenuation of his guilt must be lis•
tened to, and especially the intense audacity of the act—
an act which denied escape, rendered success almost

an impossibility, and thus offers an emphatic argu

ment in favour of the murderer's insanity.
Still, in meting out justice to the criminal, and in

presenting a salutary warning against all would-be

regicides, let us tender our sympathies to that noble

and venerable monarch whose life is thus incessantly

jeopardised. And, above all, let the French people
gaurd the life of Louis PHILIPPE with their loyalty;
let them, in GoD's name, shield him with their love.

The Art-Unions Bill passed the House of Commons
on Thursday, having received its third reading. We
yesterday showed that its principle did not come
within the mischief occasioned by lotteries, and that
practically every subscriber received the full value
for his contribution in almost every instance, and
that the surplus was divided in the manner
likely to confer the greatest benefit on the artists
themselves, by being applied to the purchase of their
productions, thus supplying a motive and stimulus to
exertion, and affording a market which would not
smallexist a sum was annually but forsuchsecieatinens.lly p
It is e
xweel
nde
d in h
l known how
e
purchase of works of art previous to the
rise and progress of the different societies ; the com-
parative amount 'so laid out may appear, from the
reports of the principal art-unions in different towns,
and it will be found that the increase of private pur-
ellages has been more than proportioned to
the sums expended by the unions themselves.
The person who, a few short years ago, would
not have dreamt of purchasing a painting, will, on
obtaining a prize, naturally feel anxious to have a
companion for it, which he will probably procure
from his private resources. He will become
accustomed to see his rooms ornamented with
some of the productions of art, the elegancies
and luxuries of civilised life ; and in a
short period will regularly devote a portion of his
surplus income to the acquisition thereof; thus an
immeasurably greater degree of benefit to art and
artists is produced than the mere amount distributed
by or through the hands of the art-unions commit- i