The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-23


trates on the charge of being drunk, disor-
derly, and assaulting the police, he with great
solemnlty committed that individual for trial
on the charge of ''uttering seditious cries, at
tempting to disturb public order, and enter
ing into overt rebellion against the
authorities" This was exactly as if
he had taken a brush and whitewashed
Boquillon from head to foot. Boauillon, in
dicted for drunkenness, would have excited
the sympathy of no one; but Boquillon, ar
raigned for sedition, became at once q man to
be proud of, a valiant soldier of liberty, a
Republican who was prosecuted for speaking
his opinions aloud Half the rising barristers
in Paris competed for the honor of defending
him. A political trial affords pretext for a
political speech, and it is by political speeches
that rising men make their way. Andre Leon
had long been looking for an occasion like
this; he offered his services to Boquillon
gratis, and sent him twenty francs to buy
wine and sausages at the prison canteen. Bo-
quillon, greatly touched by the twenty francs,
accepted the offers of service, and with the
grateful remembrance of the sausages upon
him, put his case and his history entirely into
Maitre Icons hands.
Happily both for Maitre Leon and his client
the case was one that had made some noise.
Why is it, by the way, that some cases make
such a noise, whilst others of equal import
ance make none at all? 1t sprobably hazard.
The public happened to be excited at the
moment when Boquillon knocked the police
man down. A journalist, too, threw dark
hint on the occurrence bydescribing, in angry
terms, the violence used in conveying Bo-
qullon to the station. People talked bitterly
of oppression. Nobodyrememberedth the police
man broken crown, but everybodyremember-
ed that the Republican Boquillon had had his
head punched This was enough to draw
sympathetic crowd on the day of the trial,
and when Maitre Leon rose to address the
Court on behalf of his 'persecuted client"
there were plenty of Boquillons friends
in the room all ready to ap-
plaud. OF course nobody will suppose that
Maitre Andre Leon acquitted himself of his
task by stating the facts of the case as they
really happened, and proving to the court
that Boquillon, being only an ill-conditioned
drunkard was unworthy to be cassed in the
category of political offenders. Had he made
manly, sensible speech of this sort, he might
possibly have seen Boquillon's penalty re-
duced to a months Imprisonment; but what
cared he either for Boquillon or his penalty?
What he wanted was to cause sensation, to
give vent of sudden to all the republican
froth within him; to explode, in a word, like
an indignant beer bottle. To this end he had
prepared his speech week beforehand, and
Heaven only knows what despair he would
have suffered had Boquillon died, escaped, or
been pardoned before trial.
The speech, one is compelled to own it,
was a master one. Tracing the career of
Boquillon from his youth up, Maitre Leon
described him as the pitiable victim of a
corrupt social system. ''Boquillon was
six and twenty years old, that is, he was
still a child when Prince Bonaparte was
elected President, and hardly boy when the
Second Empire proclaimed. gloom
had therefore been cast over his days of in
nocence by the sinister events of those trou-
blesome times. The success of the coup
d'etdt had led him to believe that violence
was the great rule of life, that the only point
was to succeed and the impunity with which
the sovereign had broken his oaths to the
republic bad convinced Boquillon that false
hood was permissible so long as it was bold
and unscrupulous. AS Boquillon grew up
where should he look for examples of virtue?
In the Senate? Why, all the Senators were
men who had turn by turn been
Legitimists, Orleanists Republicans, and
Imperialists. In the Corps Legis-
latif? Bak! What were the PRINCIPLES
of an official candidate worth? Twelve thou
sand five hundred francs a year. At Court,
then" (Here Maitre Leon had fit of
ghastly mirth) cat Court At Court! No,
Boquillon was a Republican; he knew right
well what lessons were to be learned at Court.
He was not a man to degrade his soul in I'm
perial antechambers." (Sensation in court.
Protestations of the three judges Ironic
query on the part of Maitre Leon as to whe-
ther it was intended to gag the bar in the
same way as the press. Suppressed applause
Collapse of the three judges.) Maitre Leon
roceeded:-'And where was Boquillon to
acquire notions of honesty? Was it by study
ing the budgets of NM, Fould and Magne. in
which accounts were shamelessly cooked each
year to show fictitious surplus? And where
was he to learn economy? By taking lessons of
M. Haussmann, or by reading the history of the
Mexican expedition? The sins of Bouuillon. -
went on Maitre Leon, chad been throughout
but the limitations of the crimes of those who
governed him. In proportion as the rulers
are honorable so will the people be honest.
II Boqulllon had been violent, thievish, and
) deceltful 1t was because the Imperial Govern.
ment had been his model, because the I'm.
perial Government itself had only thriyen bv
2 dlnt of violence, embezzlement and deceit
) (Renewed sensation and renewed protesta.
) tons. M. lie President remarks that if Maitre
Leon does not moderate himself he will be
, told to sit down. Maitre Leon, who is excited
| shruSs his shoulders, waves his hand defantly,
and starts of AGAIN. Thus Boquillon was
a victim. man whose brain had been
z warped by the influence of an evil govern
: ment; citizen whose talents and energies
had been turned into wrong chan6eI
not by any fault of his own but by
that OF the rulers already alluded to. Bnt
: what would Boqulllon not have been under 3
happier state OF things?' Here Maitre Leon
abandoned the denunclatory tone, and tool
g TO the pathetic. During half an hour he ken
t his audience breathless by the picture Of III,
II yrtuous Boquillon flourishing under tb,
% shadow Of republican institutions GgWban
It child he would have had for notb;r,, - I'll