The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-19 00:00:00

of your wishes, you will be definitely judged of ac-
cording to the good sense you display. Gentlemen,
some people have addressed to me, since my arrival,
questions cone, rning the attributes as well of the Com-
mission as of the Divan. I take this opportunity to
reply to them, seeing, as I do, several of your de-
puties around me. It is after a struggle, fortu-
nately terminated, that several of the great Powers
—most interested in the fate of Europe, assem-
bled at Paris to consider about the Principalities,
and the desire of these Powers has been to sustain
at one and the same time the rights and the dignity
of the Ottoman Empire, and to ameliorate your
destiny in accordance with the ideas and the neces-
sities of the different classes composing your society.
These powers have instructed a commission to visit
these countries, to enable them to arrive at more
exact and precise ideas upon this subject. This
commission ought to avail itself of every means of
information, and in order to facilitate its labours it
has been determined to convoke a Divan in each
Principality, whose duty it is to communicate the
views of the country to the commissioners, as also
to reply to the questions which they (the commis-
sioners) may address to them. Further, each Di-
van ought to be divided into committees of classes.
These committees are, above all, separately called
upon to inform us of the particular wishes of each
class, as they will thus enable us to acquire a gene
ral idea of the entire population of Moldavia as of
Wallachia. We, gentlemen, have no other part to
perform here as commissioners, than to make our
report according to the plan that has been traced
out to us. You, gentlemen, have no other duty to
fulfil, as deputies, than to aid us in making that
report a correct one. This gentlemen, is, I venture
to assert, our mutual position. We, on the one
hand, must not, transgress our limits, while you, on
the other, are equally bound to respect yours.
There is no maxim more applicable to practical life
than that of the Christians. He who humbles him-
sis often exalted, while he who exalts himself is
frequently humiliated. My duty imposes upon me
the obligation of speaking thus openly, and 1 think
that I give you the best proof of my friendship by
so acting. Yes, gentlemen, lam really your friend
and I shall act as such in the duties which I am
called upon to perform. Ido not promise that
you shall obtain all that you may desire,
nor do I promise to share your view in every-
thing, because I will not renounce the indepen-
dence of my own opinions ; but what I can assure
you of is, that you should receive the benefit of the
wisdom and good will of the Powers in everything
that your reason and experience may indicate, and
that prudence and justice can consider as 'compa-
tible with your intelligence, your position in the
centre of Europe, and the Suzerain-to of the
Sublime Porte ; while as regards myself indivi-
dually, gentlemen, should the opinion of so unim-
portant a personage have any power over your de-
stiny, you may rest certain that such opinion will
be expressed in a loyal, independent, and con-
scientious manner, and that it will he always in-
fluenced by the interest that you have inspired me
with, and the gratitude that I owe to you, while
guided at the same time by my judgment and
duties.

THE LATE ELECTIONS IN FRANCE.

TRIAL. OF COUNT MIGEON.

(From the Paris Correspondent of the Daily News.)
In a former letter I drew attention to the serious
fact disclosed' by Count Migeon's trial, that the
ballot boxes at French elections 'may be and are
tampered with. As the trial proceeds, the revela-
tions made touching the approved mode in which
the Government to use its own expression, "guides"
universal suffrage, are such as to excite astonish-
ment in every mind at the unblushing impudence
arid blind fatuity-which could have provoked such
on investigation as that now going on atColinar. It
will no longer do for the apologists of despotism to
babble about the essential difference between the
French and English temperaments, and to insinuate
that fairplay is an exclusively Anglo-Saxon idea. You
may be well assured that the French mind is per-
fectly capable of understanding and resenting the
monstrous frauds and oppressions which have, now
been brought to light, and which, so long as
they are permitted, must render all elections
in France utterly null and void in fore eon-
seientice. It has been proved in open court that
in the department of the Hant-Rhin the pre-
fect, sub-prefect, mayors, assistant-mayors, jns Aces
of the peace, commissaries of police, police officer',
gendarmes, huissiers, and all sorts of function-
aries, from the highest to the lowest, conspired toge-
ther, generally, and almost universally, to thwart
by all kinds of legal and illegal persecution, by an
infinite variety of direct and indirect frau-ls, by in-
' timidation and cajolery, and by isyst.matic slander
of the opposition candidate, tlaat libel ty of election,
upon which, according to the professions of the
French Government, the whole fabric of society iu
France is founded. These things may possibly now
astonish foreigners, but I must observe in passing
that they have long been known to everybody living
in France. It must not be supposed that the doings
which have been brought to light in the department
of the Haut-Rhin ate more iniquitous than those
which have been going on throughout the country
at large. Vixere fortes ante Againonnona. It has
beenjpserved for the Procureur Imperial of the
Colmar to be the sacred Vates to put upon record
for the first time achievements which the gagged
press of France was forbidden to chronicle. It
will be remembered that when the struggle
fought in various provipcial courts about the
free circulation of electoral bulletins was termi-
nated by a decision of the Court of Cassation in
the last resort in favour of the Government, it
was solemnly protest-xi, not only by all the semi-
official organs, but by a circular of the Minister of
the Interior, that it was only desired to hinder tl:e
di=tribu ion of bulletins in very rare and exceptional
cases, where there mi.2ht he ground for supposing
that public order would be disturbed. The only
result of the decision was to impose upon the can,lidete
the obligation to deposit his bulletin at the parquet.
In fact, it was given out that the only object of
the Government was to prevent the names of
red-rep u►limn refugees, such as Lodru Rollin or
Victor Hugo, swing used to excite revolutionary
feeling. No legal question about Count Migeou'e
bulletins could, however, possibly arise, because he
bad deposited his bulletin according to law, and it
WAS r.ceived without objection. _Nevertheless, ns
agents, who distributed bulletins licaring his name,
Iv, re systematically arrested. The sub-prefect,
being driven by a searching question of M. Jobs
Fevre to admit that he gave the order for their ar-
rest la one particular place, had recourse to the
miserable subterfuge that the men were vagabonds ;
ant it so happened that these vagabonds had M.
Migeon's bulletins upon them. The truth was that
he called them vagabonds because they were found
a mile from their own houses without pass-
ports. By the same reasoning, the thousands
who go from Paris to Sr. Cioud or Ver-
sailles on a Sunday might be arrested as vaga-
bonds, for not one of them in a thousand has a
passport upon him. M. Jules Favre electrified the
court by au exclamation on this disclosure being
made, " Voile la libert4 dent nous jouissons
The conclusive proof that bulletins to vote for M.
Mignon could not be found in the department is
that in many communes the bulletins of the Go-
verament candidate forced upon the electors by the
police were found in the boxes with the name of
Nizolle scratched out, and that of Migeon substi-
tuted. Many of these were rejected, because the
name Migeou was written under inst ad of over
that of Nizolle.

I subjoin, merely as specimens, a few extracts
from the voluminous evidence. They are by no
means the most striking, for since I made the ex-
tracts from the report other evidence whichl have
.n It time to analyse has been published.
On a witness named Courtot, farmer at Bermont,
ea lid—

M. Jules Fevre asked—ls it within the knowledge
of this witness that a pressure was exercised against M.
MiEeon ?
Witness—At Dell M. Migeon's placards were every-
where torn down, while those of M. Nizolle (Go
vernment) were undefaced. I could tell you the names
of the persons who tore down the plaeardp, but would
rather not mention them. No one would have dared
to distribute a bulletin with M. Migeon's name, so great
was the intimidation.
M. J. Favre—Did you hear calumnious reports re.
specting M. Migeon ? •
Witness—Oh, certainly.
M. J. Favre—Who circulated those reports ? Was
it an official personage ?
Witness—l would rather not mention names.

M. J. Favre—lt wa3 not the mayor oCßCancourt,
was it ?

Na answer.

M. J. Favre—l ask you whether it was not the
nsayor of Beaucourt ?

take down M. Migeon's placards had been really given,
the men must have executed their duty very badly, be-
cause at least several of them remained. To this how-
ever, the witness, who had been told to take care that he
was not seen at the work, promptly replied that it was a
tedious job to scratch papers off a wall with a knife. The
Procureur Imperial, finding his case damaged,then tried to
damage the witness by the observation that they were
not regular police agents but only employes of the
Bureau de Bienfaisance, known as Chasse pauvres. " Ohl
then," said M. J. Favre, "that sufficiently accounts for
their slackness in the execution of their orders.

A veterinary surgeon, named Froidevaus, deposed
that two members of a municipal council, named Con-
stant Pidot and Joseph Madru, bad been offered money
to vote for the Government candidate.

M, Hengel, a medical man of Cernay, deposed that
in that town half a litre of wine was given to every man
who voted for M. Nizolle ; that the persons who distri-
buted M. Mignon's bulletins were arrested ; that people
who went to the poll, meaning to vote for M. Mignon,
were frightened when they saw the commissary of police
watching the ballot-box, and came away without voting,
and that others did not dare to refuse the bulletins for
M. Nizolle which the police thrust into their hands.
A farmer of Cernay named Depierre was fined 25f.
for showing about a number of the Courier du Bas Rhin
which contained one of M. Migeon's circulars. Being a
marked man on this account, he had been prosecuted
niece the elections, on a frivolous charge of leaving his
cart for a moment in the street without a driver, and
,entenced to a day's imprisonment and a fine of Gf.
The prefect, however, he said, was kind enough aot to
put hits into the felons' department of the prison.
The Procureur Imperi%l was so completely thrown
upon his back by the terrible disclosures brought
out by M. Jules Favre's searching questions, that,
he made a motion to the Court on the 13th to put
a stop to M. Favre's line of examination. This step
drew down upon him the following damaging
speech :

dismiss the petition. The only question now was
the day of adjournment.
Mr. Levy said the mortgagee of the gardens might
foreclose in the interval, and there would then be
an end to the property altogether.
His Honour did not think there was any fear of
this.

M. Jules Favre said he hardly knew whether he was
called upon to answer this singular requisition, which
did not touch his conduct in the management of this case,
but was a direct attack upon the court. It was the first
time in all his experience that an attack of such a kind
had proceeded from a public prosecutor. The impression
produced on his mind by what had come out as the
cause went on was of a widely different nature from
that which apparently instigated the public pro-
secutor to make the tardy revelation which he had
done, namely, that the direction which the evidence was
taking was calculated to throw discredit upon the admi-
nistration. e What surprised him above all things, and
would astonish the public out of doors, was how the
public prosecutor could possibly have heard the evidence
of more than 60 witnesses, who bad already been exa-
mined, without perceiving the danger which now made
him so uneasy. Why did he not rise to object to the
very first witness ? Why bring forward his bushel when.
every one had seen the light ? He was afraid the Go-
v, rament must by this time exclaim, "Save me from my
friends." He had never heard a more severe censure
passed upon any Government than that averment of the
public prosecutor, in open court, that if "the veil which
covered the acts of the Administration were raised very
serious consequences would result." Was he, then,
afraid that these acts when known would provoke public
indignation ? The Court need not fear that he (M.
Jules Favre) woul I make a political speech.
He did not forget that be was defending a
man who had always hitherto showed himselt an
ardent admirer of the present Government, and whose
greatest desire was to continue to serve it. His own
personal opinions were welt known, and therefore he
did not feel the slightest embarrassment in fulfilling his
duty as counsel. The court had heard from the witnesses
that had been sought to dissuade electors from voting
for Migeon by telling them that if he was elected be
would be prosecuted. Hosts of agents had been em-
ployed to circulate the most foul libels upon M. Migeon,
Hie honour was at stake, and was he (his counsel) now
to be prevented from proving that this prosecution,
based mainly upon a state charge, had bebn kept in re-
serve, was not instituted bona fide, and was in fact a
disgraceful electoral manceuvre. He was told that he
must not raise the veil which shrouded the acts of the
administration. Ah I they might believe him, there was
Elate occasion to take that trouble. " Although," said
the learned counsel, in conclusion, " we do live in times
of silence, the public conscience is not enlightened.
. It is not fault if these revelations have been
made. I gave you an opportunity of putting off the
trial till the morning of the Corps Legislatif, but you
would urge it on • you would drag the Government into
tt e discussion, and now you must take the consequences."
The court decided that it should make no order
on the public prosecutor's application. If any im-
proper question should be put to a witness he
would be at liberty to object in the regular course
as occasion may arise. The trial is expected to last
a day or two longer.-

Mr. Levy—Notice of sale has been given already.
Mr. Jones said there was no intention of such a
thing, as he understood.
Ultimately, the matter Was adjourned until the
19th of December.

The wit73W; nodded affirmatively.
M. J. Favre—And that is the offioial personage
I charged to see that these elections are fairiy conducted !
,
Three police agents of Mdfort, nam: d Gaenal, Blcic,
Nand Perrier,
clepostAl that they were ordered by 11(1,.
eethe c'aief commissary of police, to tear down M.
Mip o
ed n's placard's, and to take great care that nobody
me-idlwith M. Nizolle's. The evidence of these
witnesses provoked great laugllter in caurt. Perri* r
said ha was toll to take doses .1.1. Migeon'e pla-
cards wherever hwehoc7wldaldoprietsewuti,thoduetnibedein
The commissary helm,hating
given the order, and vouched as 'conclusive confirma-
tion of his assertion thals one of M. Migeon's placards
might yet be seen on the wails of the Rotel de Vile.
roil argument was tantamount to a confession, because
everybody knows that to save appearance an opposition
ctodidate's address is always allowed to be posted at the
Hotel de Me of a town, although it may be looked for I
in vain at any other place in the conamune. The jn,ige i
came to the rescue with the remark that if the order to

TEE S [TN, Lo NDON, MON DAY ETENING, OCTOBER l9, 1857

the part of the crown, which was fatal to the con-
viction.

Mr. Bliss said the - bench were unanimously of
opinion that the conviction was good, and must be
con4rmed. As to the legal argument of the learned
serjeant, he would say that if a person had a house,
and used a portion in it for the purposes of betting
—iu his opinion it was using that house within the
meaning of the statute.
The appellant was then taken into custody to
serve the sentence.