The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-16 00:00:00

THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION

OF THE FRENCH EMPEROR.

TRIAL OF SIMON BERNARD-(FIFTII DAY).

The trial of Simon Bernard was resumed this morning
at ton o'clock. The interest exhibited in the proceed-
ings increases as the trial approaches its conclusion.
The Court to-day was densely crowded. As early as
9 o'clock the avenues of the court were thronged by
persons anxious to obtain early admission, and bef .)re
half-past 9 the court was half filled.

The audience was principally composed of ladies,
amongst whom were the Duchess of Manchester, and
the Hon. Miss Campbell, the wives of many of the
aldermen, and their friends.

On the bench wero the Duke of Manchester, the Earl
of Lucan, Lord Bingham, Sir R. Mayne.
At five minutes past 10'clock, Lord Campbell, the
Lord Chief Baron, Mr. Justice Erle, and Mr. Justice
Cr3wdor, took their seats on the bench, when the pri-
soner was placed at the bar.

Mr. James, in addressing the jury, expressed a hope
that the jury would believe him when he said that he
felt inadequate to efficiently discharge the onerous duty
that devolved on him in entering on the defence of a
case which affected the liberties and privileges of the whole
civilised world. It had ever been the boast, and no idle
one, that it was the duty and the pleasure of the Eng-
lish bar to render every assistance to the weak against
the strong—the oppressed as against the oppressor, and
from that spot where ho now stood the illustrious names
of Erskine, Brougham, Denman, and lastly the Lord Chief
Baron (Pollock) had shed the lustre of their influence
in the cause of freedom. The case had been brought
before them under extraordinary circumstances. He,
however, acknowledged the moderation with which the
learned Attorney-General had opened the case ; but be-
fore they found a verdict for an act which was not con-
tent with the blood of Orsini and Pierri, but which was
to stain an English scaffold with the blood of the pri-
soner, it was right they should have known and made
explained to them upon what principle of law, upon
what ground it was that this prosecution was based on
this particular act of Parliament. He, however,
trusted to be able to show that it had been
perverted and wrested from the object which
those who framed it intended, and he was speak-
ing not only his own opinion, but that which was
guiding the opinions of the greatest jurists of the pre-
sent day. The act of Parliament had never before been
applied to such cases, and had been pressed against the
prisoner under most extraordinary circumstances. He
stated that the prosecution had been instituted at the
instigation of foreign dictation, for the purpose of bring-
ing about a state of things which the then Government
had not the courage to submit to the English people and
the British House of Commons, and the Treasury Solici-
tor had been called upon to ransack the archives of musty
acts of Parliament, and having found one they sought to
enforce it against him for wilful murder for the object of
encompassing a political object which the Government of
the day had not the courage to submit to the English
people through the British House of Commons. The
learned counsel then referred to the history and origin
of the transaction, and in doing so ho said he was not
there to counsel assassination. God forbid that he
should ever say a word in palliation of assassination.
It was a cowardly, dastardly, dark crime, and be would
not then stop to discuss the question, whether it was
right to get rid of a tyrant by that means. Assassina-
tioe was a crime at which Englishmen justly shuddered,
and it was not to the dagger an oppressed people must
look for relief. God in his inscrutable wisdom
reserves to tyrants and despots a worse fate than the
machinations of man, and history attested the truth
that, though Providence allowed for a time a despot to
triumph over his people, there reroesoed for hint anin-
evitable retribution which reached more surely than
grenades and the dagger of the assaeein. Livino as we
did under the beneficent reign of a constitutional Rove-
re gn, who lived and reigned iu the hearts of the people,
we were unable to understand the feelings of those who
lived under the withering blast of despotism. The
learned counsel then referred to the attempted assassi-
nation ; the demand made by France for delivering up the
exiles in this country ; the threatening language of the
French colonels published in the illoniteur ; the speech
of the French ambassador to the Corporation of London.
Lord Palmerston's Government pressed for the extradi-
tion of this and other men who found an asylum here ;
to the conspiracy bill of Lord Palmerston and its fate,
and they were new asked under a special commission
to ask these learned judges round them, not, be would
say, to pervert the law, fur they were too high and
honourable for that, but toasts them through the verdict
of the jury to do that which the late Government
had been unable to accomplish, that of sub-
verting the freedom of asylum in this country.
The learned counsel having again referred to the Con-
piracy Bill of Lord Palmerston, on which Lord Camp-
bell, the late Attorney-General and others, greatly dif-
fered, widish the English people would not receive, and
which wrecked the noble lord's government, the strongest
' that, perhaps, had been ever known, he referred to the
charge preferred before the magistrate of conspiracy,
and afterwards turned into felony as an accessory before
the fact ; and fie implored the jury not to pervert the
law by finding a verdict against the prisoner, and, by so
doing, assent in destroying the asylum of exiles, for an
act never contemplated and not applied to this case. The
prisoner was an Italian, a native of that country which
had been almost the birth-place of freedom, but which
had now become a political waste and a desolation ; it
was not to be wondered at that an organisation should
have existed against tyranny, which had not only been
lauded by the greatest men of the age, and which had
met no favour in the English journals, whenever a
French revolution for restoring the liberties of the people
had been successful. The Emperor of France bad him-
self enjoyed the rights of asylum on the shores of England,
which he now sought to destroy for ever by the conviction
of the prisoner for murder. In 1843, the throne of Louis
Philippe was upset, and the republic of Louis
Napoleon established, who they knew bad made an
attempt from this country on the Government of
Louis Philippe. Ho afterwards, in December, 1851,
threw himself on the free-will of a generous people.
He obtained five millions of their votes, and he was by
them placed in a position the greatest that God had
ever allowed any man to hold for wielding the liberties
and destinies of man. What might he not have done, so
placed by the free-will of a people, with the halo of
the great name he bore, and which carried him into that
position ? In 1848 the Emperor of the French was
perched on the height of his ambition, and he then
s wore to protect the liberties of the French people. Louis
Philippe and Louis Napoleon had then changed places.
Louis Napoleon had gone to France, upset the govern-
merit of Louis Philippe, and taken his throne, Louis
Philippe hal lost his throne, and sought refuge in this
country ; and it was that right of asylum, which the
Conspiracy Bill of Lord Palmerston sought to destroy,
they were now asked by their verdict to annihilate, and
which Switzerland and Sardinia had determined to pre-
serve in their respective countries. The learned gen-
tleman then referred to the wanderings of Louis Napo-
leon, and said that the sentiments which he had elitins
elated from the banks of the Rhine—from the fastnesses
of Switzerland and the wild plains of America—induced
the most intelligent and generous people in the world—
the people of France—to confide their destinies to his
baud ; but before the oath was cold on his lips he
faltered. (Slight applause, which was immediately sup-
pressed.) Referring to the attempt of the 14th Jan.,
the learned•counsel alluded to the number of wounds
which the prosecution had stated, said they were as
nothing when Louis Napoleon turned the drunken
French soldiers on the night of the coup deka loose on
men, women, and children, and when the representa-
tives of the people were seized and thrust into prison,
and afterwards transported into the deadly plains of
Algiers, and the more deadly swamps of Cayenne, that
ha might erect his throne over a mighty people.
(Slight applause.) He should be able to show that
the attempt to assassinate the Emperor never
crossed the prisoner's mind, and that he never
for a moment instigated this particular murder.
There were no doubts about the facts of the murder
which it was sought to connect the prisoner with by
three general positions. The first was his connection
with Allsop, and through him with the grenades ordered
by Allsop, and paid for by him between Oct. and Nov.,
1857, but he contended the prosecution had failed to
identify the grenades used with those ordered by Allsop.
Net one of them bad been traced to his knowledge,
though he (Mr. James) admitted that the prisoner knew
some -instruments were to be used in an insurrection
in Italy, but he never had a hand or part in
the sending of those instruments. In order to
trace them a man named Georgi had been called before
them under peculiar circumstances, and who had a most
elastic memory. At the present moment a State war-
rant impended over his head, which he hoped to avert
by giving evidence that would convict the prisoner,
when he would be able to go back and have it arranged.
Already he had had twenty-six days' imprisonment, and
had now a Brussels State warrant hanging over him; he
had sworn in reference to then grenades, first, that there
were flee holes in them, and afterwards there were
twenty-five, and in the drawing he made of them before
the J uge d'lnstruction he represented there were only
seven holes ; and after analysing Georgi's evidence
the learned counsel contended it ha i failed to prove
die prisoner's knowledge of them. With regard to the
pistols he did not deny, as he had already sail, that he,
with 41 and, were collecting for a political enzeute of
which Paris was to be the focus, and Dr. Bernard bad
contributed to that supply, but without cognizance of or
iu instigating this atteuipt. He wished that proposition
to be distinctly understood, and he defied the Crown to
prove that Dr. Berea/ d was implicated in instigating
this murder. He was connected with Orsini and others
for au outbreak and in defence of their liberty, and any
attack that might be made against them ; and it was
pti aut facie consistent with much of the evidence for the
Crown. It was remarkable that with but one exception
there had been no attempt on the part of the prisoner to
conceal his name. There was no concealment when he
sent the pistols, nor when ho obtained his passport.
More arms, no doubt, would have been sent by bias had
, not Qrsitii, in a fatal moment, made this deplorable
i attempt. A letter of Allsop's had been read in evidence.
Their lordships had decided the law that the letter could
be read, but its weight rested with the jury ; and if their
verdict on it was adverse, no man ill this country
would be safe who received a letter, which he nev- r
answered, and which he carelessly threw aside. The
letter contained a reference to the Society of Friends, of

1 8 5 S.

Poland ; and the learned counsel appealed to 'he jury to
say if they were suffering in a similar manner they would
not organise a society for the regeneration of their
country. No remarks had ever been known to have
escaped the lips of Bernard to the prejudice of the Em-
peror of the French. What did Rogers, the spy (and he
fearlessly called him a spy in an English court of justice),
say against Dr. Bernard, when he attended the discus-
sions at Wyld's, in Leicester-square ? Why, that Dr.
Bernard, and those with him, were discussing the ad-
vantages of constitutional governments over those of
despotism. Gracious God ! what bad they come to.
He warned the jury that, under such circumstanc,e, to
be careful how they attended a public meeting ; and, as
for Roger 4, he had better go and report in the House
of Commons, where he would hear stronger lan-
guege used against the Emperor of the French by those
who had the cc u alga to do so t' al in Wyld's i oom n
Leicester-square, and which was delivered from the
hustings in this country in 1848. The case mainly rested
on the evidence of Mrs. Rudio. Her husband was a
ready man and no doubt joined iu an expedition with
Orsini, but what his connection with Orsini was no one
' but himself, Bernard, and Orsini knew, and now three
months had closed and no explanation could be given,
though Bernard denied having been instrumental in
hiring a man to commit assassination. Interfe►e I with,
as Mrs Rudio had been by the police, she had given her
evidence with infinite honour, for the efforts of the
prosecution had failed to cause her to swerve from the
truth. But what the transaction in which these men
were engaged might easily have been ascertained
by calling Rudio. He might have been brought here,
and they would have known the real state of the cree,
for it was absurd to say he could be set at liberty by a
habees corpus, fet by the exiraditi in treaty he could
have beers demanded and must have been given up to
the French authorities. All the circumstances', the
money and means possessed by Orsini showed the ob-
ject was to arm for rising against a body of troops,
and not for the purpose of committing a miserable
cowardly and dastardly attack on an individual. It was
as much the surprise of Bernard when he heard of the
attempt that it was committed by Orsini. It is more
strange that in England the only documents found on the
prisoner were only letters of an old date, and had no
reference to the attack. Orsini, with the cold band of
death uvon him, had made a statement consistent with
Bernard's defence, and as Rudio had not been called, he
implored them, for the sake of the prisoner's life, to coo-
eider seriously the question that upon either Orsini,
Rudio, and Pierri, no document or scrap of paper
had been found that implicated the prisoner, and,
what was more, that the Freeni system of plice,
which permeated every home and bulling, and was as
complete and perfect now as in the time of
the Committee of Public Safety when the
wife of a man's bosom was bribed to be the spy on hie
conduct, bad not been able to trace that any communi-
cation had passed between them through the post-office,
to eho w that he knew anything of the 'ae,aleeirrprise whir h
Orsini by the madness of the moment had been led to
commit. He thought enough had been done in the
dim twilight of the morning when Orsini and Pierri were
executed to expiate this crime ; and he called upon the
jury to vindicate the law cf England, without fear and
without being deterred by the threats of the French
Emperor—the formation of large armaments—not even
by the dread of 600,000 bayonets.
The learned counsel's address was listened to through-
out with breathless attention, and at its close was loudly
cheered.

The Court then adjourned for a short time ; on re-
suming,

TheAttorney-General rose to reply on the whole case.
He said—The time had now arrived for him to sum up
to them the evidence for the prosecution, and the time
was not now far distant when they would have to per-
form their part. In diechargiug his duty he would en-
deavour to coufine himself within the law and practice
of our courts in questions of this kind. Let it not be
supposed that he censured his friend Mr. James in asking
them, in a strain of eloquence rare in courts of justice,
that he had transgressed the bounds of an advocate, al-
though he had introduced a variety of topics in the
ceur-e of his address. He was induced to say so much
because it was not Lis duty to follow him
through them, but endeavour to bring their minds
back to the real questions they bad to consider and de-
cide on. He first proceeded to disabuse their mind of
the dream of his learned friend that this trial, bef ire
'earned judges of the land, in a British court of justice,
and before a British jury, that the prosecution had been
instigated or promoted by the French Government or
any other persons hut those who were able to direct
such a prosecution in this country. The late Attorney-
General instituted this inquiry, from certain circum-
stances laid before him, that there was evidence to show
that the prisoner was implicated with Orsini and others
in a conspiracy to murder. The case was brought before
a magistrate when certain evidence was given, and the
case assumed an aspect that led the leazated counsel elm
conducted the case and the worthy magistrate before
whom it was preferred to commit the prisoner as an
accessory before the murder. No musty Act of
Parliament had been ransacked under which to
bring this charge, for it was one passed in
the last year of the life of George IV., and
under circumstances which most of them recollected. It
was not the Government who made this charge, but the
learned magistrate before whom the prisoner was exa-
mined, believing he was bound to do so under
the terms of the act of Parliament, and it non
came before them as a British jury to decide on
the guilt or innocence of the prisoner on the evidence
produced, and not on the eloquence of the learned coun-
sel for the prisoner. He expressed his confidence in
their impartial decision, and said, in reference to the
learned counsel's remarks on the silence of him (the
learned Attorney-General), why this charge had been
made. Happily this was the first case of its kind that
had occurred iu this country, and it was not to be won-
dered at, if this was the first time that the country had
been so disgraced, that this was the first time such a
charge had been preferred, and he defended his conduct
in conducting the present prosecution. If such at
attack had been committed in this country on the per-
son of our beloved Queen, and many had been wounded,
what would they base said to a foreign Government
who bad thought fit to refuse justice, on the ground of
dictation ? There was not a person in this country who
would not be gratified on finding, at the termination of
the trial, that the country had been relieved of the stain
on it, and he asked the jury to restore him to lib, r y
without a stain upon his character, if they believed hi n
innocent, but if, on th 3 contrary, then ke called
upon them to discharge their duty irrespective of what
would follow. The prisoner was charged as an accessory
before the fact, and the law was, that it any person sup-
plied any means, by which these persons, Orsini, Rudio,
and Pierri could have assassinated the Emperor of the
French, or attempt to do any grievous bodily harm to
him, and if they, in making that attempt, however un-
willing, sacrificed the lives of other persons, then they
who did that act were guilty of murder, and those
who assisted them as accessories before the fact. It
was perfectly immaterial whether they had any inten-
tion of destroying these particular individuals named in
the indictment, and he (the Attorney-General) charged
the moral responsibility belonging to the guilt of these
wholesale murders to every one of the parties directly or
indirectly using the implements employed. The learned
counsel at great length and minuteness entered into the
facts detailed in the evidence, pointing out the portions
which he urged completely made out the charge against
the prisoner. Two questions alone was left to theta on
the evidence—first, whether the instruments supplied to
Orsini and his assistants were the same grenade 4
or a portion of them, which Mr. Taylor manufactured,
Alleop paid for, and Orsini and his associates commit-
ted the murders, or whether there were other instru-
ments mauufactured, purchased, and obtained elsewhere,
and conveyed to Brussels for another different purpose.
The remaining question, however humanely and merci-
fully they wished to judge of the prisoner's conduct, fled
of which he (the learned Attorney-General) thought it
was impossible for them to entertain a shadow of a
doubt, was the knowledge of the prisoner of the unlaw-
ful purposes for which these instruments wore pro-
cured. The learned counsel referred to the
cross-examination of the witness, that the shells
were made for the improvement of gas, aid the
admission of the prisoner's counsel that they were to be
used for a general rising on the continent, and said he
was at a loss to know what was the line of defence relied
on by the prisoner. He must, however, take it both
ways, and he argued that either way the evidence bad
I made out his case.

At the conclusion of the learned Attorney• General's
address., the court adjourned,
..._

Tne summing up will commence at the sitting of the
court to-morrow.

LLOYD'S SHIPPING.—(Ting Day.)

LONDON, April 16.—Wind this day at noon, S.; light
breeze, and fine.

PORTSMOUTH, April 15.—Wind
fax, from Gibraltar. Sailed—Liverpool, for Now York ;
Her Majesty's steamer Vulcan, for Gibraltar and Malta.
NEWPORT, April 15.—Wind W.—Sailed—Nelson, for
Callao ; Mary Adella, for St. Thomas ; lkedalus, for
Ascension.

SWANSEA, April 15.—Wind S.W.—Arrived —Maje-
lian, from Boaton, U.S. Sailed— Thomas Daniel, for
Coquimbo.

SUNDERLAND, April 15. —Wind S.S.E. —Sailed —Nor-
den for Hong Kong.
QUEENSTOWN, April 13.—Wind S.S.W.—Arrived—
John Ferguson, Mauritius.
SHIELDS, April 15.—Wind S.S.W.—Sailod—Taglioni,
for Quebec.

TElGNmourn, April 15.---Wind S.S.W.—Sailea—
Abaona, for St. John e, Newfoundland.

(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
SOUTHA3IPTON, Friday l!kforning.
Calm and fine.
Arrived—Galway Lass, from Swanseaf;)
s London ;
Lyme ; Nancy, Newport ; Duke of Cori-1,71' 'Nowpoit ;
Ann, Noath ; Angelian, Cardiff; Clara,
ndon Venus,
Atalanta (s), J( ney ;
Emma James,
Glasgow ;
Montrose; William, Dartmouth; e William,
George, Cardiff.
Sailed—Branch, Waters, 0 Isabella, Vectis, and
h
tiia, and Brothers, Cardiff.
uice of Cornwall, for
BD eadbfloh d; —Nali
Li6itrooL, Friday Morning.
orthfoarm,Sdiloncdeesrtioar°dE.nv

Wind N. ls.—Atin Mitchell, from Moulmein ;
Arrived, April janoiro; Aurora, New York ; Esperanza,
Nansen,
Demense, Tarragona ; Antics, Dunkirk Salcotalkolti°
;11ambulg ; Esperauce, Rouen ; Sixteenth,
.Arendina,
Briebnag ; Maria and Neptune, Rio Grande; Calliope,
N,,,, OrleanTs ; Marnie.Lacadie, M.anzanilla.; Dinah Muloch,
Caldera ;
.. M. icks, Galveston; Pacific, Madeira;
Jeannette Melanie, Ostend ; Frederick, Hamburg ; Per-
auveraut, Antwerp.
Sailed, April 14—Mary, for Aden ; Windhover, Riga ;
Nethertoa, Newfoundland ; Adriatic, Halifax ; Fergus,
Aalborg ; Borassia, Cronstadt.
Sailed, April 15—Jane, for Newfoundland; Alix, San.
tander ' • Emmeline, Narva ; E. Cushing, Charleston.
Sailed, Apia I.o—Eleauor, for Calcutta.