Year: 1877

Ine sentence On UAua"ess~e


M Gambetta was yesterday sentenced to
three months Imprisonment and to pay a
fine of four hundred dollars, all for hav-
ing supplied to the printers OF the Re-
p,tblique Ffancaise newspaper the copy of
his speech delivered at Lille. The trial
was of the sort that became infamous
in English history under the desig-
nation of Star Chamber trials. 1t
was secret, and the judgment was
merely an expression of the animosity
OF the government This condemnation is
piece of tyranny SO outrageous, so defiant,
not only of justice technically, but of the
spirit of the age in which we live, that 1t
seems to belong to the past away times
when persons in authority deemed them
selves free from every restraint but that OF
their own caprice OF passion. In speech
which, however caustic in it's spirit


however overwhelming in its argu-
ment, all that was said was said
courteously and respectfully that con-
tanned not a word for which the orator could
have been properly called tororder in a
parliamentary body; in such a speech NJ


Gambetta criticised the course of the govern
ment from the standpoint of a legitimate
opposition. 1t was no crime, even under
the laws of France, to deliver this speech;
it was crime to publish it, and it was
published. Therefore Gambetta was an
accomplice to that crime. He might have
contested this hasiy logic in court but his
counsel was i'll. There is no Stale which
respects justice whose tribunals would have
more or less does not compromise the as
sertion of the law. Yet the Court has
tened on to its verdict as if it also
were under the influence Of the per-
sonal hate that originated the prosecu-
ton. Thus, without being heard, without
demned as speedily as if the fine old days
of the Reign of Terror were restored. For
this insult to France-this indescribable
blunder that will blow the government up
like nitro-glycerine-it is not possible that
a man SO sagacious as the Duke de Broglie
can be responsible. In this prosecution it
must be supposed that the Marshal has
simply taken the bit in his teeth. 1t is
chronicled that Daniel OConnell once called
a certain woman parallelogram, and that
this piece of geometrical abuse excited q
degree of rage that all the scurrilous epi-
thets in the language could not have pro-
voked. A similar irrational anger seems to
have seized upon the mind Of the French
President on account of the phrase in Gam
betta's speech which contemplated a con-
tingency in which the Marshal would be
compelled to reconcile himself to the will
of the nation. 1t was too much for
this supreme persons patience to be re-
minded that if he were on one side and the
nation on the other his side would tip up.
His determination to punish the effrontery
Of that speech by the law or without it af-
fords the only ground on which the act can
be understood. Acts Of this sort have some
times resulted from too much zeal on the
part of legal functionaries, who are apt to
be overready to do the will Of their
superiors 1t is possible, therefore,
that the element trop de sele may
also count in this case. But, by whatever
process this result was brought about there
can be no doubt of its consequence. All
that Gambetta could say in this canvass-or
that he could have said if his single voice
were equal to that of all the great orators
together-would not prove SO potent in the
canvass as Gambetta silenced by imprison-
ment. Not otherwise than by the act of
the government could France be so con-
vinced that it must suppress the govern
ment or be suppressed by it. Gambetta, it
is reported, will appeal from the sentence !;
but the result of his appeal will not tighten
the opprobrium of the government, and
may deepen the reproach against the Bench.