The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-17 00:00:00

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0 • pa.- r,,t, Is
0, iiliti '
• 104 it , , ,
u cloik, replied the Prince, with his usual i
7.13151041'tY •
• Tffer>infortunate old man is now alone ; he escapes
from the observation of men, and yet he may be
traced for some time longer.
The Prince carried two watches : one a hunting.
watch, which he was accustomed to wind up him-
self; and a town watch, which his valet-de-chambre
wound up. The Prince wound up his hunting-
watch on that occasion. After the retirement of
M. Bonnie and Lecomte, the Prince snuffed the
two wax-candles which had been freshly lighted in
the chimney-place, and went quietly to bed. The
wax-candles burned only for about half an hour, and
not two hours, as has been said. As for the Prince,
the following circumstance makes it certain that he
went to bed for the purpose of sleeping. The
Prince laboured under an inguinal hernia on the left
side, which no one knew but M. Bonnie and the
valets-de-chambre. M. Bonnie had advised the
Prince to take off the bandage every night on retir-
ing to rest. Well, this is just what the Prince
doe-. The bandage was found in the bed,—the
handkerchief carries with it the proof of his having
reckoned on a to-morrow. It was the Prince's
habit to make a knot in his handkerchief, which on
going to bed he used, as every body else, to place
under his pillow. I know well that there are cir-
cumstances which ill suit discussion in a public
audience, but my courage, in not receding before
any difficulty, will be able to explain all. "
There surely does no, exist, in all these circum-
stances, any presage of the discovery of the morrow.
Thus, then, in summing up the acts of the day of
the 26th, what is observable ? A perfect calmness,
an affable reception, a repast, at which great gaiety
WAS displayed, a game at cards, and a farewell to all
present, in these words, " a dernain." Having re-
tired to his private room, the Prince gave himself
up, as usual, to his little private affairs; he wrote
down his losses at play.
It is known that at eight o'clock Lecomte came
to the Prince's door, as his Highness had directed,
—that silence alone answered to his voice. He ran
to the apartment of Madame de Feucheres, whose
conduct on this critical day ought to be well
scrutinized.
"What is it that she does ? She takes scarcely time
enough to cover herself, which is natural enough;
but what looks less so is her not going by the pri-
vate staircase, which led, not into her chamber, but
from the lower corridor to the saloon preceding the
Prince's sleeping-room. It was natural for her to
have done what she says she did.
She has said before M. le Conseiller-rapporteur :
" I presume that in the state in which I was I must have
pared by the private staircase."
No, Madame, you did not go up or come down
by the private staircase : this is a fact established by
the instruction.
" Madame de Feucheres went up with me, by the grand
staircase," says M. Bonnie. She was between us two.
She said to me while going up, "If the Prince does not
answer, it will be necessary to force the doer."
Having arrived in the waiting room, every one
observed that the private staircase had remained
open all night. This staircase, which leads, not into
her chamber, hut (and it is an important circum-
stance) into the lower corridor, is accessible to all by
the vestibule, and allows a passage from the park
and the court to the door of the Prince. At the ex-
tremity of the corridor, and quite close to the stair-
case, opens a door from the sleeping-room of Ma-
dame de Frucheree.

'~;

Every one is struck with this circumstance ; and
Manoury directed Lecomte's attention to it, by
ob-
eerving—
" You did not then close the bolt P" To which Le-
comte replied, " I believe I closed it. I did not pay at-
tention to the matter."

Be pleased to recollect this declaration, which we
shall be able to compare with that made to M. le
Counsei&r-rapporteur.
What I establish is, that even after the opening
the chamber _Madame de Feuelseres did not wish to
fix attention on the fatal private staircase ; but that
she returned to her chamber by the .staircase of ho-
nour, which was the most unlikely thing for her to do.
So a witness, Jerome Hippolyte, declares that
he saw Madame de Feucheres descending the grand
staircase, after the door of the chamber had been
forced.

It is now necessary that we should examine the
appearance of the chamber where the Prince died.
At the first blush, it struck the witnesses, parti-
cularly the valet de chambre, that the bed had been
adjusted by hands not acquainted with the Prince's
habits.

The Prince arranged it so that his bed touched
the bottom of the alcove, with an interval, however,
sufficient to prevent the wood of the bed from in-
juring the wainscotting : the intervening space was
very narrow, scarcely an inch, according to Hyppolite
Jerome, who frequently made the bed.
The women Bontemps and Dubois made the bed
on the 26th—the bed which the Prince had lain in
some hours before his death. The woman Bon-
temps has declared that the can take upon her to
affirm that on that day (positively on that day) she
had arranged the bed (relative to the alcove and
wainscot) in its ordinary position.
Well, it is found that the bed is a foot and a half
from the bottom of the alcove. The manner in
which the bed was pressed down, and the impres-
sion which it preserved, did not appear less re-
markable.
The Prince usually lay and slept so much on the
outside that his valets could hardly conceive how it
was that he did not fall out while sleeping; and
even in order to prevent such accidents as might
arise from such a position, had taken the precaution
to fold up a counterpane in four, so as to raise the
edge next the chamber, and accumulate the feathers
on that side; from which it resulted that the Prince
found himself very much covered in on the side next
the chamber, while towards the middle of the bed a
heap or swelling was usually to be found. This
custom of the Prince was not known to those who
remade the bed after the perpetration of the et ime.
They constructed an artificial depression in the middle
as Dupin explained in these words:— •
" I have Nae n his bed ; I declare that the depression of
the bed in the middle, and its removal from the bottom of
the alcove, were entirely foreign from the habits of the
Prince."

M. Rouen Desmollets did not credit the allegation
of suicide. What confirmed him in his belief was
the slight and very gentle pressure which the body
of the Prince would appear to have lefr. The im-
pression appeared to him to be such a one as a hand
heavily laid on the bed, or a young prrsun, from
twelve to fifteen years old, disposed so for an instant.,
would have made. The coverlet was turned up
quite rightly, as it is usually turned up when the bed
is about to he warmed, but the edges were not at
all pressed down.
It appeared to Manourv, that the bed was much
rather like one artfully adjusted than unmade (plutot
arrange que defait.)
Another mistake. In the course of these pro-
ceedings my adversary has treated many things with
levity. " I will not," said he, " trouble myself into
the allegations touching the bed. I will not say a
word with reference to the slippers."
It is necessary, nevertheless, to explain ourselves
on a matter that has made much noise. I address
myself to you respecting a chair which, on the sup-
position of a feigned suicide, would have been placed
near at hand to the Prince.

M. Bonnie has deposed " that chair was usually
placed between the Prince's bureau and the fasten.
ing of the casement ; it was scarcely a foot from the
body of the Prince. Wishing to assure myself
whether all assistance would be useless, I displaced
the chair with my foot ; but I positively declare that
it could not have assisted in the alleged suicide of
the Prince, even though he had had the free use of
his hands to loop himself on the fastening of the
window-sash, and even though he would have been
able to mount upon the chair, it was not placed so
as to facilitate the execution of such a project."
And still more precisely to the same effect—" The
chwr was not placed in the angle of the casement,
nor sufficiently near to the body of the Prince to
afford him assistance in hooking the handkerchief to