The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-03 00:00:00

DECREE OF THE COURT OF PONTOISF.

" September 7, IS3O.
. _ .

" Considering that the result of the information clearly
is, that the death of the Prince was voluntary, and an act
of suicide; that public justice, in this affair, has no new
fact to seek, nor any criminal to punish, and that the pro-
ceeding is complete ; the Court declares that no steps arc
necessary, and directs the documents to be deposited in the
registry."

- : This is what passed at the time when the will of
the Prince was yet unknown; it was so very soon,
and was of a kind to occasion very great dis-
content, and more particularly that part in which the
Prince evinced his disposition towards Madame de
Feucheres, though certainly never did unbounded
attachment more justly merit a strong proof of esteem.
In order to show the disinterestedness of Madame
de Feucheres, M. Lavaux stated, that a few days
before the death of the Prince, and owing to her
solicitation, a negociation was entered into to sell
to Mademoiselle d'Orleans for 5,000,000 of francs,
the estate of St. Leu, in order that the Prince should
have some provision in case of exile ; and surely this
was not what a woman greedy of possessions would
have done ; the less if she had already known
that it had been bequeathed her. It is probably
to this negotiation that we should refer that
phrase of the note torn by the Prince—" St. Leu
belongs to your King.' However, continued the
learned advocate, time and reflection increased,
sharpened the discontent ; the officers of the Prince's
household where indignant at the items of the will ;
they demanded that Madame de Feucheres should
go to the King, in order that the will should be
amended, and she refused. Then it was that
Madame de Laville Gonthier gave encouragement
to the disappointed parties, and that all the ca-
lumnies that have been vented against Madame de
Feucheres received her wiiling adoption.
In the house of the Prince was his almoner, the
Abbe Pellier, a hot-headed man, who was introduced
into his service at the recommendation of Madame
de Feucheres, and of the character of whose lintel.
lect one may form some idea from the following
verse (from a piece addressed by him to her in
1825), in which he thus apostrophises Napoleon ;-
1 Execrable tyran a Pceil sombre au tour faux,
Toi qui pens de serpent egaler la souplesse,"&c. &c.
After the death of the Prince the Abbe Pellier
appeared very much distressed in mind respecting
the masses for the deceased, and the carrying of his
heart to St. Denis. It was evident that it was the
interest of this man to make it appear that the
Prince had not committed suicide; hence it was,
that as he himself informs us, the Prince was one
of those high minds who indignantly spurned the
notion of self-destruction.

It is true that to make out the case of assassina-
tion it is necessary to explain how it was that the
bolt, which the assassins must have drawn, should
have been found fast within ; but M. Mery de Ia
Fontaine, an officer of the Prince's hunting esta-
blishment, conjectures that, by means of a small
piece of riband attached to the head of the bolt, it
could be drawn after the door was closed. This M.
de Ia Fontaine endeavoured to show the manner in
which the strangulation was thus effected, and in the
same window in which the Prince was found, he fas-
tened a cravat round his neck, and placed the tips of
his toes on the carpet, and showed that in that po-
sition he was not hung.—(A laugh among the audi-
ence, in which even the bench joined.) You laugh,
Gentlemen, but this was the whole foundation of a
grave chirge.
This being not, however, sufficient to induce the
judicature at Pontoise to renew the process, it
aebe-
came necessary to libel, in order to set on foot a
supplemental process—a supplemental information.
The Learned Gentleman here read the following
passage from that libel :—" The Prince was found
hanging as the vilest of
beings,
chiefs held him up, not suspended from, but only
• St. Lou belongs to King
Philip;don oatnd plundertvn ohndkr-
r
burn
the
chateau or the village; do no injury to any of my friends or my
servants .... You have been misled about me. I have not .
heart the people, and the hope of the welfare of my country.
f St. Lou and its dependencies belong to your King Philip ; do
not plunder or burn the • • • •the village ...•injury to no one, n y
friends, or my servants'. You have been misled about me; I have
only to die, with wishes for the welfare and prosperity of the
French people and my country. Adieu for ever.
(signed) L. 11. J. ae BOURBON, Prince of Conde.
LS, 1 request to be tUterrctt at Vincennes, near my unhappy son.

aught by (accroche) the fastening of the win-
dow." In another passage, an account was
given of the funeral procession to St. Dents,
in which it was said, that the Abbe de Pel-
tier, in an energetic discourse, declared that " the
Prince was innocent of his death in the sight
of God." The deposition finishes in a phantasma-
goric scene (and here, said M. Lavaux, I am asto-
nished that I appear alone at this bar; I am, in-
deed, surprised that an Hon. General (General
Lembot) has not promptly placed himself by my
side, to demand justice for an infamous calumny).
The words are these—" Intensely occupied with
this momentous event, sleep came upon me—all at
once I beheld the shade of the departed Prince.
Persevere,' said he, the monsters had resolved on
my death for several days; notwithstanding the
darkness of my cell, I immediately recognised their
chief—he has the audacity of Catiline united with
tht strength of Hercules. I would not suffer him in
my Palace ; and I perished by a horrible death, not-
w►thstanding my deep groans.' " See the calumny
which they have dared to cast against General
Lambet, who, as he has since proved, was at the
Palais Bourbon, at Paris, on the night of the Prince's
death. See how they wish to prejudice the public
npinion : see the means employed against those
of the household to frighten them. It does not
seem that such insinuations should have force
before a Court of Justice. However, the tri-
bunal of Pontoise issued a new process. On
the 28th of November Madame de Feucheres
had written to the Attorney-General, complaining
of the calumnies of which she was the object.
and to demand that the process should be continued,
and if that process were completed, it was owing to
her, for she pointed out 23 witnesses of whom marry
had shewn themselves hostile to her. But to reach
the end which MM. de Rohan desired, it became
necessary to atop the process, because the fables
drawn from the libel could not be laid before the
Judge of Instruction and the King's Attorney,who
had commenced the preliminary proceedings ; and
there was no hope of estal ,fishing the infamous ca-
lumny which had been directed against Madame
Feucheres, and which evsn stated the precise sum
received by the physicia a to be 100,000 f. The
advocate here notices a sew attempt made by the
publishers of the libel, who sent to Madame Feu-
cher.% the first proof of I pamphlet, entitled " The
Mysteries of St. Leu," containing an announcement
of a complete biography of Madame de Feucheres.
That lady contented herself with communicating
this libel to the Attorney-General.
The Court finally directs the instruction to pro-
ceed. M. le Conseiller (le la Huproye was named
reporter. " I should be glad to believe," said M.
Lavaux, " that this magistrate had forgotten the an-
cient sentiments of the emigration, and his venera-
tion for the Princes de Conde, which induced him to
reject the idea of the suicide ; but I must say that
never in a criminal instruction were so many facili-
ties given to a civil party."
It was necessary, in the first place, to demonstrate
the existence of a crime ; and here the advocate en-
ters into topographic details, from which resulted
the impossibility of any person gaining access to the
apartments of the Prince by the grand corridor, be-
cause the valet de chambre had the key, and the
door was, besides, bolted on the inside. But it was
said there was a private staircase; and this staircase,
it had been repeated to satiety, led to the apartrnsnt
of Madame de Feucheres. Nothing could be more

devoid of truth. It was as base a falsehood as pos-
sible. To reach Madame de Feucheres' apartment
six doors must be opened; two cotridors and a bit h-
ing-room, entirely separated from the apartment of
that lady, must be passed through. Perhaps, gen.
tlemen, in your religious zeal for the administration
of justice, you would like to go to St. Leu. It is
there that this calumny will be detected.
13:sides, a new obstacle would still be presented
to the person who desired to enter the Prince's
chamber by the private staircase ; the door was
bolted, and Madame de Feucheres, when she wished
in the morning to get in, ‘s as obliged to have the
door opened by the valet de chambre, who had en-

tered with the physician by the grand staircaso. It is
true that the closing of the bolt might he explained
by the aid of M. Mery de la Fontaine's silk riband;
hut an experiment made by him on a door, which
did not shut properly, prove: nothing ; and I do not
know whether such an idea ever entered into any
one's mind before. It has been said that some days
after the Prince's death, the Count de Joinville found
in the private staircase a silk stay-lace, which might

very w,ll have been applied to such a purpose ; and
M. de Joinvillo declared in the instruction that he
never found a stay-lace.
M. Lavaux arrives at the moral proofs which had
been adduced to show the impossibility of suicide,
and produces on this point many extremely impor-
tant depositions made before the Conseiller Instruc-

teur by several of the Prince's household. Thus,
M. de Laville Gonthier, being asked whether, sup-
posing the Prince to have contemplated suicide, he
would not rather have employed a sword or a pistol
for the purpose, replied,—a sword is not so sure;
the Prince had not pistols, and dared not ask for
any ; a musket is not convenient for suicide.
General Lambot attributes the suicide of the
Prince to three principal causes :—first, the misfor-
tunes of his family ; second, the fear of having gone
too far in his adhesion to the new system ; third, his
internal torments.

M. de Choulot being asked respecting the Prince's
horror of suicide, declares that he had heard the
Prince say, that being at La Vendee during the
" hundred days," he had imagined that some per
son intended to blow out his brains. Question.
" Do you think that if the Prince had committed sui-
cide he would not at least have left some writing?
—To reply to that question, it would be necessary
to consider the moral state of the Prince on the

26th of August., and I was not that day at St. Leu."
Such are the opinions of intelligent per.ons attached
to the Prince; and it ought also to be added, that
all the observations of physicians prove, that with
old people the most common kind of suicide is
strangulation.

It results also from the declarations of the post-
master of Leu, that one of his relations having
hanged himself is the month of January, 1830, from
one of the hooks which supported cross-be ims of the
window, the Prince inquired respecting the details
with so much eagerness, that after the death of the
latter he could not help exclaiming—" It was, then,
for the purpose of hanging himself, that he asked
me all that."

The Prince's awkwardness, and his incapability to
tie the knots of his cravats, had been dwelt on ; and
the instruction proved, that every evening he tied
his night cravat himself, and that the knots found

round-his neck were the same kind as those which
he usually made.
It has been said, that he could not raise his left
arm to attach the cravat to the fastening of the win-
dow-sash ;it has been forgotten that there remained
his right arm ; and that besides, raised on a chair, he
reached exactly that height of the fastening, which
was exactly six feet four inches from the chamber
floor.

It has been asserted that the Prince could not get
on the chair, though he was able to mount his horse
every day; and the letter of Rheims seems to have
been forgotten, for in that letter the Prince describes,
with much grace, his facility in scaling the estrade of
the throne.

The echymoses of the legs have been appealed to,
for the purpose of proving the violence which had
been used towards the Prince ; and yet it is proved
that the physician Bonie detected a swelling in those
parts, which rendered excoriation likely to take place
on the slightest contact.
To the moral proofs of suicide, there has just been
added a physical one, which the modesty of the
physicians concealed in the first certificate, when
there were no contradictions, and which they have

since affirmed.
After having thus, in spite of the evidence, found
the crime, the next thing necessary' was to find the
criminals. At first General Lambot was marked
out, and afterwards Madame de Feucheres ; and to

render the imputation moue probable, an attempt
I was made to prove that Madame de Feucheres had
struck the Prince. It was then that I could not
contain myself, and I cried out against the calumny.
See the machinations which they got up on this
occasion They brought forward the woman Gou-
verneur to depose to this fact; but it appears from
the interrogatory of M. *****, and the confronting
of the witnesses, that the allegation was completely
refuted.
" See thus," continued the Advocate, " the
matter on which they relied for that which they
dared to call the crime of the 11th of August."—
The Advocate concluded his statement by laying be-
fore the Tribunal several interrogatories addressed
to witnesses by the Counseiller Instructeur ; and
particularly the examination which Madame de Feu-
cheres underwent for three hours, and remarked on
the moral violence offered to this lady by her un-
pitying judge, and the answers, full of dignity and
nobleness of mind, of his fair client.
PI. Lavaux concluded this part of his speech with
an analysis of the circumstances connected with what
M. Hennequin termed the crime of the 18th of Au-
gust, with the blows which Madame de Feucheres

gave the Prince in a dispute, and with the wound
which she caused in his right eve. The advocate
reminded the Court that it was a female named Gou-
verneur who said she had the particulars of this
scene from the Sieur Obry, Inspector-General of the
Department of the Chase, who was present; he read
the deposition of the woman Gouverneur, the depo-
sitions of Messrs. Pichonieur and Namur, to whom
this female had repeated the words of M. Obry ;
lastly, the two interrogatives of M. Obry himself.
The following is the close of M. Obry's first de-
position :

" The only thing the Prince told me, on the 9th of Au-
gust, was this :—That he was very happy that the Duke
of Orleans was there to take the reins of Government ; that
for him he had been very unfortunate; and he added, at
my age, moreover, these things are for others, not for me.'
This is the whole truth. I learnt from Gouverneur that,
in conversation with Man,ury, he made to her the dis-
closure which she made to me. If the Prince had re-
fused his confidence in me, I would not hesitate to declare
it, as I have declared all I know rcl itive to this fatal event.
To the family of Conde I owe my own existence and that
of my family.
" Tee death of the Prince has made so deep an im-
pression in all hearts, that whatever relsted to it was

matter of constant conversation, and it is not surprising,
thst excited by the misfortune, many persons collected to-
gether the slightest circumstances in order to give some
consistency to suspicions."

The second interrogatory put to M. Obry is in
hese words :

" Q. You have declared you came to St. Leu since the
events of July, with the permission of M. de Choulot, to
pay your respects to his Royal Highness. According to
you, it was on the 9th of August; it would appear that
it must he the 11th ?—A. 1 went to St. Leu the day of
the Royal Sitting, and I can bring forward proof of it.
" Q. It would appear, from the deposition of some
witnesses, that yon went to St. Lett, and there saw the
Prince, the very diy on which he received a contusion of

the eye. When M. Bonie, the Prince's surgeon, ap-
peared to offer his services, he was told to come by-and-
by ; that the Prince was engaged in business with you.
Manoury says that whet, you left the Prince, he found
him with h;•a feet bare and in great agitation. If it was
on that day that you arrived at St. Len, you could not
have remarked the accident which had happened to his
left eye ?—A. When I went to S-. Leo, I remarked no
contusion on the Prince's eye : he was not bare-footed,
and he received me in his ante- room.

" Q. The woman Gouverneur and Picbonnier depose
that you communicated to them in confidence, to the one
towards the close of last January, to the other six weeks or
twf.-, months ago, that having been at St. Leu a few days
tieforo the death of the Prince, he stated to you, enjoining
ou to keep it a profound secret, that Madame de Feucheres
was a had woman, that she had struck him ; and he told
you, pointing to his left eye, See the condition in which
she has placed me?'—A. I swear again, upon my honour,
aat in the course of conversation with which the Prince
honoured me on the 9th of August last, the day of the
Royal Sitting (I had not the honour of seeing him after-
wards), I observed nothing about his eye; he did not
utter the name of Madame de Feucheres, nor did he utter
the words ' had woman,' nor did he say, ' See the condi-
tion in which she has placed me.'" *
After a speech which occupied five hours, the Court
rose at a quarter to three o'clock. Next Friday M. La-
vaux will go on with the discussion of the case.

This passage in brackets is from the report in Le National.
The rest of the trial is taken from the report in the Constittt-
tionrzel.

FRENCH PAPERS.

CHAMBER QF DEPUTIES, DEL.. 29.

FRENCH CITIL LIST.

M. de Schonen, the Reporter (Chairman) of the
Committee, began by explaining the difficulties the
Committee had met with in their researcher, and
the extent of their labours, of which, he said, the
Chamber could judge. Coming to the King's Pa-
lace:, he said, France gives, as the endowment of
the Crown, to her King at Paris, the Tuileries and
the Louvre Palaces, being consecrated to the abode
of the King, and which can only be suitable to them
as the representatives of the majesty of the French
people. In the departments, the castles and parks of
Ver.ailles, llarly, Meudon, St. Cloud, St. Germain,
Fontainebleau, Compiegne, Rambouillet, and Pau.
Pau is to be given on the same terms as the jeu de
paume of Versailles, and all the endowments, with
some subtractions to benoticed hereafter, are the same
nearly as those of 1791 and 1814. We have all
been struck with the accumulation of these castles
in a narrow circle ! and we asked what was the
method of reducing them, and what should we re-
duce ? St. Cloud must necessarily be the residence
of the King in summer ; Meudon is only a detached
pavilion ; the castle of Marty is no longer in exist-
ence. As for the two Trianons, they are situated
in the middle of the park at Versailles. If they are
not preserved, they mu:t be demolished, and who
will buy them ? The year 1793 shunned that insult
to the fine arts, and can we, in the 19th century,
voluntarily charge ourselves with this destruc-

tion ? No, gentlemen, we will leave it only to
time to accomplish this work, and the later the
better. Besides, the King has a young and nume-
ous family; they must soon be provided for; these
houses,—these parks,—may be granted by parental
solicitude,l and then the dowers may be less, while
the family will not be separated. After having en-
dowed the crown with real property, we come to
the preservation of such establishments as the mann-
ficiures of Sevres, the Gobelins, and Beauvais.
These establishments are the pride of the country
and the admiration of foreigners. If they are costly
to the King, they will be so to the State, if con-
nected with it; for it is impossible to destroy them.
Remember the hundreds of workmen to whom they
give bread. The money of the Crown can have no
more proper destination. It is the preservation of
an industrious, moral, and intelligent population,
who only desire to live by their labours. The Com-
mittee has not lost sight of what is due to agricul-
ture.' It has collected an account of detached
pieces of ground, which amount in value to
18,282,200 francs, which being formerly stated at
ten, the Committee propose a reduction more than
the Government of 8,000,000 of francs. All these
pieces may be sold. They were removed from com-
petition, and cost money for guards, so that a double
advantage will be obtained by selling them. The
King, before his accession, being then only Duke of
Orleans, had his private fortune divided into free
property and appanage. In France, under the domi-
nion of our ancient laws, as well as those of 1790 and

1814, the principle that the private property of the
Prince who succeeds to the throne falls to the S ate is
quite clear. As to the appanage, the case
is still
clearer ; because the property of which it consists is a
temporary dismemberment of the property of the State
in favour of a junior Prince, and the male descend-
ants in the order of primogeniture, in order to en-
able him to maintain his rank with honour and dig-
nity. The appanaged Prince, on arriving at the
throne, has no longer any need of an appanage. A
civil list is granted him; his appanage goes back to
the property of the State. These are the principles
of the subject ; they go back to the first ages of the
monarchy, and are the conservators of the public
fortune. Our Parliaments made it their glory to

maintain them, by the justice of their decrees, and
the severity of their remonstrances; they were scan-
dalously violated by the famous Senatus Consultus of
January 30, 1810. In 1814 returned to a
wholesome theory. Under the i ence of their
last law, the accession of August , 1830, took
dlill
place. And the Counsellors of the King were sen-
sible of it, causing the King, on the morning of that
day, to make over all his personal property to his
younger children, reserving only the life interest.
The endowment which France makes for her King
ought to be worthy of it and of him. The first
representative of the nation ought to have no
equal. In the name of liberty, and even of equality
they ought to be submi-sive, like us, to the laws. We
consent that he alone shall rise above us. On this
point we were unanimous, though we differed as to the
sum. Some wished 14,000,0001.; others, 12,500,000 f.
All the members were not agreed as to these sums;
the but the votes, when taken, were found to be equal
these two sums. Remark the progress already made.
The civil list of Charles X. was 35,500,00 V.; the
present civil list will not be more than 15,000,0001.,
including 1,000,000 f. for the Prince Regent. More-
over, 11,0001. of real property will be substracted
from the former endowments. These are important
reductions-20,.500,000r. annual charge, and the
value of 18,000,000 f. capital returned to com-
merce, or to the public service. We may dread
larger reductions could not give relief, and might
excite disturbance. The reporter concluded by
reading the project of the law, which we shall give
hereafter.