Star.
London, England, 1830-09-27 00:00:00

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

We extract the following interesting account of the severity practised
against the editors of journals in Paris previous to the late revolution,
from the Family Nagashu, an unpretending, but se original and enter.
Laming a miscellany as at present issues from the periodical press of this
country. The first article, entitled " The Slave Ship," has tempted us to
apply our scissors to it for some time, but it proves too long to ex.
tract, or to be cut down without injury. We recommend it, however.
to the perusal of our readers, as containing some very novel delineations
of scenes and characters :

THE FRENCH TRIBUNALS AND THE PRESS.
Our readers will have learned front the newspapers how large a share
the violation of the liberty of the press by Charles IL and his ministers
had in producing that astounding revolution which has once more
burled the incorrigible elder branch of the Bourbons from the throne
of France. The severity with which offences of the prom have been
visited in that country has no doubt tended materially to embitter,
the independent conductors of that formidable engine, and to array
nearly its whole force against the authors of those damson messums.
The following narrative of the proceedings in the recent case of an
individual, written previously to the lute political changes, will sheer
the English reader that there were not wanting pounds so justify this
hostility.
A young and inexperienced welter, named Foam, was awed is
one of the minor journals which Wetly maintain themselves by their

witty sallies and atrial mays on the ruling powers. In an unlucky
moment he took it into his had to write a hamurous allegory, which he
entitled " The Mad Sheep."
e As soon as the paper containing this al-
legory append, the King's attorney ceased the sale to be by
the police, and accused author Wan the tribunal, asserting that
" The Mad Sheep" was meant to designate the King, and consequently
that he bad Insulted the royal -wmo. The officers of the aown ought
to be lens hasty in their Foom ; for it is a curious dratinsumes,
that they are always the first to discover the mart meaning of such al-
halm, and to write a name beneath a nameless picture. When Be.
ranger was ted, a few years since, on account of some poems,
among whit there was an ironical song on the Carlovingian King
Charles the dimple, the king's needed, without he:shades, that
Charles the Simple meant Charles X. Whether such an scats&
don produces a good effect, whether it would not be better, instead
of displaying the acumen eta aide, to affect not to understand, nay,
not even to suspect the allusion, I leave to the deddon of more comps-
tent judges. The writer so seamed seldom fail to deny the applkatiata
altogether ; and more than once the defendant's counsel has answered
the King's advocate in this manner " The explanation is yew work;
my client maintains that be bad neither the King nor any other diode.
guished personage in view." In sods a case methinks the best way
would be to be content with this diaelehner of the writer's. The judges,
however generally pursue s contrary course s to them the allusion
is as clear as to the King's attorney, and they fill without mercy
upon the poor author, whose lines would perhaps be noticed by but very
few and soon be forgotten among the inundations of new works. Thus,
too, the pollee court, the lowest and least enlightened of the tribunals
of Parts, sentenced young Fontan to a heavy fine and five years'
imprisonment. On appealing to the Cows royale be obtained not
the slightest mitigation of this severe sentence : be has attacked the
person of the King was the argument; he must not be spared. To
safes five years' imprisonment for having written some indiscreet
lines, which could not have met the eye of more than a ray small
proportion of the population of the capital, was a terrible idea. Fontan
fled to the Netherlands, and in vain applied to the government for a safe
retreat. Forced to Ay from place to place, he at length returned to
France. It is astonishing that he did not pursue his way to England
or to America; perhaps be bad no prospect of a subsistence—but could
he have fared worse there than in his own country I'
No sooner was he again in France than the police pounced ups him,
and he was shut up ad inter/es in one of the prisons in Paris. The
young man had composed a tragedy, and as be could not attend the
committee of the Odeon to reed it, the committee repaired to him in his
prison to bear it read. It was highly approved, and the Committee re-
solved that it should be brought out immediately. When this circum-
stance was published in the newspapers, the labra-royable journals lit
meiikti.ly strove to prevent its performing*. Nothing was more anal
than such a fanatical paper as the Gesafe de Prow or the Drawee
lime. It was may to anticipate that the public would take a warm in-
taest in the fate of the production of a persecuted young poet. If his
tragedy had succeeded, writers of influence might hare been induced to
obtain a mitigation of his punishment; but this the fanatical ultra-
journals determined to prevent. They maintained that it would be most
indecorous to perform, in a theatre-royal, a tragedy written by a libeller I
of the king, and that the government could not possibly mar such a
scandal. The liberal papers certainly replied that the theatres royal, as
they an called, are supported by the money of the nation, and that upon
the same pretext the stage might be closed against a great number of
poets. As, however, the people in authority were actuated by the some
sentiments as the Gazette de Prow, the performance of Fontsn's tra.
gedy was suspended, at least foe a time. There are indeed several other
theatres besides those called theatres-royal, though they are all sup-
ported by the money of the people, and merely receive a gratuity from
the government, or the court ; but the minor theatres are not allowed to
p tragedies in verse: this is a privilege of the Theatre Franiais
and the Odeon. Foam, therefore, bad no other chance than to
metamorphose his tragedy into amet:Tde.melo-drama, and to bring it
out at one of the theatres of the

For a young writer all these disappointments united would of them.
selves bare been a sufficient punishment; but the people, who then
possessed power, were ineconcileable enemies. They determined to
revenge themselves upon Fontan for all the squibs against them with
which the journal to which he was attached was continually emus-
log the public; in short, he was to suffer for all his colleagues. He
became the victim of the same kind of resentment that was shown a
few years since to another journalist, named Magallon. There is a
law, by virtue of which such culprits as are sentenced to moreithan one
year's imprisonment are kept to some kind of labour ; but no one
ever thought of applying this law to authors sentenced by the courts
to imprisonment. The ultra party, however, was alwas ingenious in
its revenge; and thus it thought fit to cause poor Magalion to be
conducted by two gens d'armes through the midst of Paris, manacled
to a thief, to the house of correction at Poise'', and there put to hard
labour. This when it was made public, excited universal
n, briand, who was then minister, warmly inter-
einsttlijnlttself in behalf of his persecuted brother-autbor, and Magal.
lon's lot was mitigated. This line of conduct does the authorities
by which it is held irreparable injury in the public opinion. Me-
gallon himself returned to Paris with such a feeling of resentment,
that he began to write again immediately in one of the journals
against his persecutors, and with such vehemence, that be was once
more brought before the tribunals, and he is now suffering a second
imprisonment, not in the house of coerced= at Poise'', but in one of
the prisons of the metropolis.
Fontan was treated nearly In the same manner as Maggallon, with
this difference, that, Instead of being led through the streets of Paris
handcuffed to a thief, he was suffered to hire a fiacre to awry him
to Poissy ; but when once he had arrived there he fared no better
than other convicts. The system pursued in tepid to them has been
eircumstandally detailed in the newspapers. As soon as they entre,
they are obliged to strip; they are then scrubbed down, two and
two, in a great bathing-tub, furnished with the convicts' dress, and
conducted to the work-rooms, where they are set to work. At dinner
they eat by fives out of one dish. At night they are locked into
their dormitory, each of them having a kind of wooden crib, which is
nailed against the wall and provided with a mattress, when they lie
covered up to the neck in a suit, in whlth the, an tied by as awed'
ant, and so left till months. Nothing revolts the more vied society
in such a degree as treatment of this kind; and Weed the idea or lam
lag to live for five years swam in such degradation, sad is sash tie.
testable society, would be sesegh to drive a weikanumni yam mss
piaet sentiments le Impair. The dramstiote of Parle, end sp.
those who live by this talents and age indspendent of the
mad, intaresisd themselves In hilt of Fontes, whose
amid Id Ilkpoleedonels le bleallow, and resolved so or to
the peek* of the pale, teperprat as it was to their thgs
jelogr& somennniceden with tbat nay may whether they could ef-
met any of Fontan's situation. Man& replied that it was
not by his anise that Font= had bees removed to Rimy, and that the
minister at the Intake had the su over all the booms et
correction at Paris. thermion, to that minister s they
admitted that they couTlidertave little bops of abridging the peeled of lon.
tan's confinement, as the young 'rather bad been convicted of an caws
against the person of the king, adding, "We beg your excellency se
capably, that every author runs the risk &being treated se roman has
been at !obey. The Abbe la Wennais was coos brought beton the
tribunal of the police t had he been sentenced to more than one yeses
imprisonment, be too must have been anted to Pointy, scrubbed down
with a thief In a bething.tub, and tied up every night in a sack. Boras,
councillor of state, deputy, and proprietor of the Arsenal as Deists,
was also brought some time sines before the tribunal, and, bad he
not been afterwards acquitted by the Carr Royale, be might also
have been subject to similar treatment at Poissy. We beg your
Excellency, therefore, to consider, whether there is not argon no.
omit for a=measures in behalf of convicted whom, and for
providing a place of cotinement for them.*

Mouths! acknowledged that their remonstrance was well lmmisd, bat
that of all the points to which they had so eloquently dirtied* Mien.
don, none had struck him so powerfully se the picture cd the Abbe hi
Menses carried as a convict to Potosi!, to be scrubbed in $ barks tub,
and tied in a sack. He dismissed the deputation of dramatists whit an
assurance, that he would prepare a prefer de id relative to anthers sees
tenced to imprisonment, end submit it to the king. Montbd,Lrt u
h a natured man at bottom, would probably have
this Wrswkty hid not a court intrigue produced a little revolution in
the adalniatesdon. Poor Mootbel, to whim the Ministry of the Ince.
rior was Ise great a burden, was loaded with the still more oppressive
departments, finance, and was succeeded in his former post by the ob.
noxious Pqronnet, whom all the journalists would gladly have sat to
Poissy, bad it been in their power. From him nothing was to be hoped
etches in behalf of young Fontan or for the prevention of the like abuse
in similar eases; and the other ministers had something else to think
of, namely, how to maintain themselves in their places: so that the fats
of authors condemned to more than one year's im t, and of-
fences of a political kind, will probably be left at the discretion of the
rulers of France, till an enlightened and liberal administration shall be
called to the helm of affairs, and the criminal law so defective this
point, shall be amended by a well disposed and thoroughlyi well informed
Chamber of Deputies.

DEUTSCRES LISEBUTCH t OR, LESSONS IN GERMAN
LITERATURE.
ST J. SOWSOTILLM.
This is the most generally useful and kooks** to
the study of the German language ever The
author, aheady advantageously known how may imam 114,
executed his judicious task with all commendable are, a
happy medium between prolixity and brevity. It is divided Ma
parts ; the lint atimaise an interlinear, liberal, and free unnekden, k
the some line, thus Amin sot only the verbatim elpileetien et soh
weed. but also a cempaehem of the two Mises ; the seemed, a literal
tranelatlon of each word ea the appetite pege,thus elkelans to the sem-
i dent an opportunity at tatmeintki net emly doe Omen bee &Oak
but aim the &OA kw Sams i the kid, a hes annekdeni kid
ht the Lot pot a tandeden only k Oka aka et the more Moak
wads end phones. Re have Indy to add, that the esketkne ere ink
teem the 'Mose et the most teited ash= Genoa sakes, and
en equally adopted to emus and Instruct the student.