The examiner. [volume] (Louisville, Ky.) 1847-1849, 1847-11-06

with horror. III must nave SnoCkco niS
humanity, and it ought to have touched and
alarmed bis conscience; not that he was in
the remotest way accountable for that par
tcular crime, but as the example OF the
direful extremities to which matrimonial
strife may be carried in high stations should
have made him reflect with sorrow and with
fear on what he has done and undone in
Madrid. Sckening to the Imagination is
the night scene of butchery in the chamber
Of the ill-fated Duchess de Praslin, but the
assassin's malice did not go beyond the de-
siruction Of life, and his victim went TO her
account spotless in character, and with all
virtues mblemished. The murderer made
his havoc OF the body, hacked with his knife,
stamped on the head with the impression Of
the ducal arms on the butt end Of the pistol;
but here ended his malice; he shortened
olame!ess life, he did not make guilty one,
he was assassin of the flesh, not assassin OF
what it enshrined. He wrought no oorrup-
zion, no deprivation, no debauchery, he con-
tented himself with vulgar murder--there
was an obstacle to his Illicit desire, and he
removed ii; he did not doom the victim to
position in which the virtues could not
live, and in which the vices sure TO spring
mp would tend to ruin oil every kind, ruin OF
character, ruin of fame, ruin OF inheritance.
The assassin kept all the guilt to himself, he
did no. work his will through making bis vic
tim gulty-his instrument was aknile, not
snare to destroy by debauchery and degra-
dalton. or TO torture with the announcement
of rights.
| 'What the eye does not see the heart
does not rue" The minds eye sees the
horrid scene of the wife sinking under the
blows Of the hand bound by every tie to
protect her; but the assassination Of char
acter and peace is not palpable; we see the
wounds, but do not trace them directly TO
the instrument, nor the instrument to the
hand, and they are repeated at intervals.
The butcher puts the sufferer out Of pain
in a few minutes, but demoralizing to de-
stroy is a slow operation, requiring a sus-
tanned cruelty, which intense cupidity will
supply. Such examples there have been in
the annals ofvulgar crime. Donellan, the
guardian, who murdered his ward Sir Theo-
dosius Boughton, commenced by giving the
youth every licentious indulgence, in the
hope thar debaucheIy would do the work Of
death he never, however, had the wit to
think Of marrying him to some woman
whom he would inveterately hate, and
becoming impatient Of the slow process Of
destroying by immortality, he shortened the
matter by dose of laurel water, For this
act OF comparative mercy he was hung.
The succession to the estate was the temp
talion TO the crime. SUGGESTIONS have much
to answer for in wickedness, but modes are
altered, and what used to be done by wars
and throat cutting is now brought about by
weddings, the hymeneal torch being borrow
ed from the Furies.
But TO return to our text-the piteous
example of the assassination Of the Ouch
eSs Of Praslin--what father, with the alter
native for his daughter of death like that
of the unfortunate duchess or life like that
of Isabella Of Spain, would hesitate as to
the choice "a sudden violent death on the
one hand, on theother The cruellest position
in which a woman and wife can be
placed, one in which it is hardly possible
thar the virtues most BETTING the female
character could survive, and in which, if
they did survive, they would not be believed
to smvive-an incredibly most powerfully
tending 10 cast down morality in despair.
A Lucretia may indeed exist with the reputs
of Massalina, but that is not thu question,
it is whether any father would not prefer the
worst death for his daughter with her mind
unmllied, her fame unspotted, her virtues in
their perfection, to such lot as that which
has been cast for the Queen Of Spain, whose
throne .a pillory, whose reputation is drag
gee through the kennel whose married life has
been a series Of disgusting disappointments,
notifications, and angry conflict, and whose
court and report, true or false, IN the scan
dial of the whole civilized world. She may
have resisted all the artful combination OF
adverse circumstances that would have de-
moralzed ninety mine women Out Of hun.
dred in the same position; but the question
whether she has done so or not is in itself
an inlamy which makes her fate more TO be
piled than the victim in the late assassina-
ton. and which renders her destroyer not
less 10 be execrated than the felon Duke
of Praslin The objects in the two
cases have been different, but in morality
the motives are hardly less criminal in the
one instance than the other. The evil de-
sires had different directions, but they crush
ed what stood between them and the cove
ted object with equal ruthlessness-a mis-
tress in the one case, and throne for de-
scendant in the other.
| "Committunt eadem diverse crimina fato,
lie crucem scelers pretium tulit, hic diGdems. +"
For taking away life the law has its
penalties; but for taking au ay the happ-
ness Of life, for taking all that gives
it value, for taking away peace, inno-
cence, the worlds respect, and, worse still,
selErespect, there is in the moral code no
worse name than ambition, or the craving
for family aggrandzement.
Curious il is that in France, within year,
two personages have made the world ring
with actions at opposite ends of The matri-
monial chain, the Duke de Praslin by his
method of dissolving union, the matchma-
king king by his refinement on the torture
Of old, Of uniting living with dead body,
to destroy by the repugnant pestiferous con-
nectIon.
We see it announced that, by order Of the
Queen Of the French, funeral service has
been performed in the chapel Of Eu for the
repose of the Duchess of Praslin. If the