Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1847-09-01 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

DEATH OF TIIE DUKE DE PRASLIN.  lit last Wednesda)'s tIKRALD, we announced the mite, der of the Duchess De l'raslin, under most mysterious circumstances, It is se'dont that any occurrence in a fort in country has ex .•tted:so much attention in England. Indeed, taking into consideration the rank of the parties , concerned in this dreadful affair, it is nut surprising that it is the sole topic of discussion in the French journals, and that its details should occupy no large a portion o the columns of the English press. Since our last publi, cation, the French papers inform us that M. de l'raslin died on Tuesday afternoon, about five o'clock, in Inc p7ison of the Luxemb burg. The cause of ti is death bas been ascertained. It was with arsenic in a large dose that he poisoned himself, at the moment when he found the charges against him had become sufficiently grave to render his arrest and prosecution necessary. The severe vomiting, which he experienced on Wednesday evening. and in the course of Thurslay, appear alone to have retarded the effecs of the poison, which, after bi-lag checked on Friday anl Saturday, on Sund cy resumed its former force. It is stated that since his arrival at prison all attempts to obtain from him in his weak state any confession or explanation of the murder was fruitless. The Patrie states that he sometime.' replied to the questions which were put to him in a vague and evasive way, and at other times said, " I know nothing." It is added that he has not had an hour's sleep since the order was first given for his being considered in custody garde in  We read in the Debats :—" From the morning of yesterday th 3 state of M. Praslin caused his immediate decmse to be anticipated. Several attacks of delirium rotnifested themselves ; yet about four o'clock he was ado to roceive the last sacraments from the Cure de St. Jacques de Haut Pa,, in resence of s.veral persons and of the keepers of the prison. At five o'clock be had ceased to live. It will be ten r.bernl that after the  arrest of the Duke, the magistrates found in one of the pockets of his dressing gown a ph i:.l eontai ni tg laudanum. M. de Prasl:n had just swalloaed a part of it, but sufficient remained at the bottom of the bottle to be submitted to a chemical analysis. The contents of the phial, and the matter vomited by the Duke at the moment of which the first symptons of the poisoning manifested itself, were confided by the Court of Peers to the examination of M. Chevalier, professor of chemistry at the Ecole Centrale de Pharm ele. 'lie result of this analysis ass consigned in a process verbal, which will be published. The presence of arsenic, in sufficient quantity to cause the death of several persons, was shown in those different matters, that is to say, in the substance contained in the phial, and in the votniting,s which followed the poisoning. It is announced that the autopsy of the corpse aill take place this day." The Sun, iu commenting on this awful and tragical deed, says,—" On Tuesday evening the Duke de Choiseul Praslin committed suicide while confined in the prison of the Luxembourg. This, we take it, is a conclusive testimony that the deceased nobleman was in truth the murderer of the mother of his nine children. He has escaped the avenging hand of Justice, he has hurried before a more awful Tribunal than that of human authority, he has plunged into the mysteeious abyss of Death, after intbruiog his bands in his own blood and in the blood of h:s is retched wife. The departure of a miscreant covered with a guilt so tremendous must make one shudder, but llinnt inspire any light thinking man with inclination to fodow the spirit of the dead with expressions of indignation. There is a sanctity even in the death chamber of the assassin—even over the cadaverous corpse of the suicide—which husks the voice of wrath, and reminds us that the power of man is impotent before the majesty of the grave. Years hence the tale will he told how the Duchess de Choiseul l'raslin was killed by the hand of her husband ; the sleeping apartment in the hotel Praslin will possibly be shown as a " place accursed" to those who are yet unborn ; the print of the bloody hand upon the wall will tell of the struggle of the poor lady in her last agony, and will attest the spot in which the deed was perpetrated, like the stains upon the floor of Holyrood, or the broken flag-stones in the dungeon of Berkeley Castle. With ourselves, however, this horrible occunence must be associated with very different considerations. The self-destruction of the Peer who, within the last fortnight, has rendered the name of an august family infamous, and covered its survivors with shame and desolation, makes it incumbent upon us to turn from the immediate actors in this domestic tragedy, and scrutinize the conduct of those persons who we morally responsible for the life of the accused and for the expiation of his et line in the event of his conviction.  That the Government has been most culpable in permitting the Duke de Preslin to escape the ignominies of a trial and execution is beyond all denial. It acre an insult to the common sense of the people fur the authorities to pretend that the suLide was a casualty which occurred wholly and entirely without their connivance. Every circumstance that has transpired since the fatal morning of Wednesday, the 18th instant, has betrayed the willingness of the Government, or rather of the subordinate officers of the Government, to facilitate that catastrophe which has just deprived the ducal murderer of an existence which had become loathsome and unendurable. We cannot, of course, distinctly avert that poisons were conveyed to the Duke de Praslin at any direct instigationsfrom a high quarter, or that the trotsmission of that instrument of death:was under the express permission of his official guardians, but we must most plainly and emphatically pronounce our conviction that indirectly the authorities have been accomplices in the suicide—that opportunities must have been intentionally afforded—that precautions must have been wilfully foregone—that efficient remedies must have been purposely neglected. These inferences are inevitable from the facts that have transpired."