The Sun. — 1847-08-27 (London, England)

PUBLIC JOURNALS. FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY. TIMES.—The Duc de Praslin has committed suicide in the cell of his prison in the Luxembourg. The necessities of justice and the indignation of the people have been equally defrauded of their legitimate desire. How, or when, or where the wretched murderer obtained the poison which enabled him to escape from the indignities of a trial that could have had no result but the scaffold for himself, and infamy for the children of the unfortsfnate lady whom he so barbarously put to death, the French journals give us no satisfactory account. The palpable insinuations, however, of the anti-dynastic party, and the flimsy excuses of the organs of the Chateau, seem equally to point at the same conclusion—that it was not without permission from a high quarter that the Duc de Praslin obtained the means of putting an end to his most wretched existence. It is impossible, with every desire to be credulous, to attach much credit to the statements, put forth on autbority, of the manner in which the Duke committed suicide. Up till the account we published to-day it was generally believed that laudanum was the particular poison he had employed. He was represented as having swallowed the fatal draught at his own house. The most eminent physicians in Paris were called in to administer remedies, but until yesterday evening we heard nothing of any doubt as to the nature of the particular poisons. More than this, no mention was made of this attempt at self-destruction until after he had been in the custody and under the watch of the police. Cn referring back to the accounts which we published from day to day, it will be found that there was no talk of poisoning at all until the Duke had been put under careful surveillance. M. Allard and his agents are not men from whose vigilance it is easy to escape. The prisoner could not have moved or breathed without their connivance or their permission. We can ourselves have no doubt that the Duke de Praslin swallowed poison on two distinct occasions. The first time was at his own house; and when he had been recalled to life by the efforts of the physicians it was necessary to call in, the means were furnished him of repairing his first failure in his cell at the Luxembourg. We have but little doubt that on the first occasion the Duke swallowed laudanum ; on the second, arsenic. An explanation put forth by the Journal des Debats, that after his arrest a phial was discovered in the pocket of his dressinggown, which had contained a mixture of laudanum and arsenic, appears utterly incredible. Do men ordinarily commingle these poisons ? No, it was necessary to explain away the laudanum in the first, and the arsenic in the second instance ; and, therefore, the idea was devised of the Duke swallowing a mixture of the two poisons.ln order to free the Government from suspicion, it has been further declared that the:swallowing of this compound potion took place at a period antecedent to the arrest of the Duke. The facts, however, do not stand so, or all the accounts we have received hitherto must be incorrect. With regard to the second dose (if a second dose was indeed taken), it must have been in the prison of the Luxembourg, under the very eye of M. Allard and his lynx-eyed agents, that the potion was taken. Can we, then, resist the conclusion that, in permitting the prisoner to commit an act of self-destruction, Allard was acting upon high authority ? If this he so, we much doubt whether the Government have been well advised in permitting the prisoner to escape from the sword of justice. It was quite competent for them to treat this as an isolated crime, in which they or their policy were no more concerned than in the atrocities of the lowest culprit who might be arraigned before the criminal tribunals. Consider for a moment the facts of the case—what had they to do with politics or political men ? A man no way distinguished in the public affairs of his country, except by the chance accident of station, in the dead hour of night entered the chamber of his sleeping wife, and with a deadly weapon, and under circumstances of peculiar cruelty, put her to death. The cause of the crime, as far as we can understand it, was that the Duchess had, on the night of the murder, violently reproached him for an improper intimacy with a lady who had been the governess of their nine children. Nothing more—nothing less ;—these, in few words, seem the facts of the case. Let justice be done to the Government. It is difficult to decide how far the commission of a particular crime may be attributable to the moral atmosphere and influence by which the guilty party is surrounded. We cannot, therefore, with accuracy determine whether or no, if the Duke de Praslin had been a peer of the Court of Queen Victoria, he might have committed a similar crime. But certainly nothing could be more contrary to the interests of the Government than the scandal resulting from such an act at the present moment. It is more likely to exercise an unfavourable influence upon their fortunes than a systematic sapping and mining of the public liberties for twenty years. The Government had but one only chance, which was to hand the Duke de Praslin over to the public indignation. The blood of the murderer as it flowed upon the scaffold would have washed away whatever share even malice might have attributed to them in his guilt. That was the only means of compurgation left them, and that they have refused. Far be it from us to join in the cry, but we foiesee that this most injudicious withdrawal of a culprit from the justice of the public tribunals will be turned against the French Government, in order to father upon them vices other than those they possess. We do not, however, even by an insinuation, mean to attribute any share to the leading people of Paris in this most horrible and revolting crime. But it would be in vain to deny that a profound demoralization does at this moment exist in the very heart of French society. Take the recent State trials, and let the French officials be judged by the opinion entertained of them by the French public. Look again at the transactions which are now taking place at Madrid. The intrigues of a brothel have there been substituted for the policy of statesmen. It has become impossible, from a regard to decency, to review with the severity it deserves the Spanish policy of the Rue des Capucines. We will not, however, pursue the subject further in connexion with the suicide of the Duke de Praslin. If the French Government have connived at it, they will soon find cause to repent their error. It is not probable that we have yet come to the end of this disastrous tale.