The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-28
OBITUARY.
Pierre souIe.

Pierre SOuIe.
Pierre Soule died at New Orleans on Saturday,
aged 20 years. He was a native of Castilon, in
the Department of Ariege, in the French Pyro-
nees, and was the son of Judge Soule, a former
Major General in the Army of the Republic, but
who had assumed the hereditary ermine on the
establishment of the Empire. He was destined
for the Church. and was edscated with view to
that end but his restless ambition could not be
confined to the strict limits of clerical life and
while at college at Bordeaux he became in
volved at the age of Is years, in a plot against
the Bourbons, which, being discovered, caused
his precipitate fight to Navarro where he re-
manned for more than o year, following the
occupation of shepherd, when he was permitted
to return to Bordeaux.
Hesoon after repairedto Paris and was admitted
to practice law, and commenced to edit a news
paper entitled lie Main, which advocated liberal
Republican principles and was the Ldnterne of
that period, and where he received treatment
not nnlike that meted out to Rochefort in our
day. He was tried, and after defense of him
self characterized with no little amount of skill,
and an urgent appeal in favor of his youth,
which he Indignantly objected to, he was SEN
fenced to pay fine OF ten thousand francs and to
an imprisonment in st. Pelagie, q famous jail of
Paris, from whence he was suffered to escape
to England.
He tried to obtain situation in Chill, butwas
defeated in his endeavors, and he returned 10
France. He then, in company with friend in
the French navy, set sail for ST. Domingo,
where he arrived in September, 1926, and soon
after went to New Orleans where he commenced
the practice of the law in French simultane-
ously with the study of the English language,
in which he soon achieved great perfection and
won large practice at Bar second to none in
the United States for ability and legal acumen
His position entitled him to seat in the United
States Senate from Louisiana, to which he was
elected in 1S47 to fill vacancy, and was re-
elected in 1SAo, and took an active part in the
debates which closed with the adoption of the
compromise of 1850.
In 1858, upon the accession of President
Peirce, he received the appointment of Minister
to Spain. Soon after his arrival in that country
he brought discredt on himself and tho United
States by foolish quarrel with M. Turgot, the
French Ambassador, which resulted in duel, in
which Soule wounded his antagonist. On the
occasion of the revolutionary outbreak in
| Madrid in August, 1854 Mr.. Soule lent his in
fuence to the insurgents, and In his zeal on the
subject of the acquisition of Cuba he was led to
| exceed the instructions of his Government, and
| to withhold from the Department of State the
| information that treaty of reciprocity of trade
| between the United States and Cuba had been
concluded by the American Secretary of Lega-
| ton in Madrid during the temporary absence of
| the Minister. Mr.. Soule participated in the
conference of American diplomatists at Ostend
in the summer of 1854, he being obliged to pro-
eeed thither by sea, as the French Government
refused to give him passport to travel through
| France. 1t is thought that he exercised great
| influence in securing the adoption by Messrs.
| Buchanan and Mason, the other members of the
conference, of the declaration that Cuba must
be acquired by the United States not only as
necessary to the political power of the republic
but as especially indispensable to the welfare
and security of the slaveholding portions of the
| Union.
Mr. soule was succeeded as Minister to Spain
in 1855, by General A. G. Dodge, and he re-
turned to the United States.
At the incipiency of the Rebellion he opposed
with vigor the secession of Louisiana, but he
afterwards gave his hearty support to the
Southern Confederacy. In 1862 he was arrested
and was confined for some time in Fort Lafayette
as political prisoner. During the Rebellion he
was principally employed as an agent for the
furtherance of the Southern cause in Europe.