Year: 1870

with the exception of that newspaper, and the
Americans in Paris, do not know of anybody who
believes that the verdict was just one Not to
weary you with needless repetitOns, let me ask you
TO note these few points. Until p N b. began to
write in the Arenb de Ia COrSe newspaper,
hardly anybody outside small circle of his
intimate friends, was aware of his existence


He set the whole quarrel afoot by his letter to that
paper in which he said that the men who were
writing against Napoleon /. were "cowardly Ju-
dases," TRAITORS TO their country that "in old
times their own parents would have thrust them
into sacks and thrown them into the sea" the pun
ishment of parricdes) and that the proper way to
treat them now was I" to cut out their tripes and
throw them to the dogs" This letter was signed
=. n. Bonaparte and led to Groussets challenge,
Grousset being himself Corsican. The Procureur-
General Grandperret showed very clearly that the
first provOcation came from the Prince himself,
and that the second did too. For said he,
if, when these two persons came to your
house. YOU had received them properly, as
became your rank and position being, as they were


persons whom you had never seen before, you would
never have given occasionsso Victor Nor to strike
you But you received them haughtily, disdainfuly,
advancing with your hand in your pocket and asking
them if they were the "manGure| T. hodmen,"
"ackeys" of Rochefort. As to these facts, there is
dispute, and Grandperret showed clearly enough,
that in view of them it could not be argued that the
Prince was in q state of Legitimate defense" when
he fred at Noir He called distinctly for a condem-
nation on this ground and yet the jury acquitted the
prisoner. Who can say that the acquitta was just
one, especially when, with regard to tho blow said
to have been given by Noir, there was no proof
offered that would have stood examination in an
English or American court of law, that such blow
was ever given. But need not go over this matter
again. You have all the evidence and all the COM
ments before you, and can form your own opinion


There has been q slight effort made to mako the
public believe that Immediately after the acquitta


there was public demonstration at Tours in honor
of the Prince l can you that nothing of the
sort took pace-nOr, indeed would it have been
permitted by the authorities, who knew well enough
the way in which such demonstration would be
regarded in Paris, and who knew, beside the violent
character of the man. and the danger there would be
of his saying something to excite anew the anger of
his enemies The space in front of the Palas de JUS


tce was surrounded by line of soldiers and muskets
guarded by sentines were stacked in the middle OF
this square, Squads of infantry were all the time
coming and going up and down the Boulevard, and
any too great assemblage of people, no matter what
their sentiments might have been would have been
quickly dispersed. But in reality, though there
"
and women collected in front of the Court House
and about it to watch what went on outside, and to
gather, as best they might, what went on inside,
speak the simple truth when say that there was
nearly as much curiosity expressed to know how we
journalists ate and drank! Laugh as you will,
assure you that all during our dGjeuner, and es-
pecially during our dinner, from 10 s,
crowd was collected about the windows OF
the dining-room of the Hotel de rUnivers staring
steadily and stolidly in to watch the animals feed


Men and women came and struggled for places, and
held up their b6b6s in their arms, young girls looked
in smiling and quite unabashed when some young
fellow pulled aside the muslin curtain and mockngly
held up glass Of wine orange, and young boys
fattened their noses patiently against the window
panes by the hour admlrng if that was the way in
which newspaper men always dined. The people OF
Tours, the Tourangeaux, as they are called, are
stohd, impassive set and have unlimited stare
power, but as for an enthusiastic demonstration, of
that they are utterly incapable. SO, when
the trial was over, the people who were about the
palace divided halfoled round to the side entrance
TO see the Prince leave the prison. and half lolled
over to the Hotel to see him enter there. His little
boy and girl had been long waiting for h1n, watch
ing at the window, and when he drove up in close
carriage and alighted, there was the natural human
curiosity to muchtalked of man, but certainly


nothing that could be called enthusiasm. There
might have been among these ignorant country
people little excusable enthusiasm for the man who
had brought moro money-spending people to their
town than had been seen there before In lifetime


and who had in the heat of his indigna-
ton at being asked to pay 100000 francs to the
family of the man he had murdered, declared
that he would rather give 100000 francs to
the Door of Tours, an offer which, blythe
ylr- To
even the impetus given to the trade of Tours and his
buncombe offer to the poor could not stir the Tour


angeaux from their habitual phlegm, and the only
result of his release from prison was that few more
stared than ever stared before and those who'd al


wavs stared now stared the more. Something was
made in his favor by the visits of the Prefet and of
the Marshal Baraguey dHliers to the Prince at the
hotel but it is said, and is most likely, that these
visits were not wholly congratulatory, but were
made to enforce (by persuasion, OF coursel the ex


press command received by telegraph from the
Tuileries, forbidding the Prince to accept
anv demonstration or to give occasion
for one, and ordering him to return
to Paris by the midnight train, which he accordingly
did regret to say that the only expression of what
nav properly be called enthusiasm for the murderer
Of Victor NOr came not from French people, high or
low, but from Americans living at Tours First at
the hotel having left the COURTROOM as soon us 'he
verdict was pronounced, and an hour before Pierre
Bonapartes release was signed, was Gen. Anderson,
who left his card with these words written upon it


"Arec mes sinoeres ecitaons" My respectfor brave
officer, who played SO distinguished part in
our war, prevents my making any comment
on what in any mere private person would have de-
served to be stigmatzed as most unnecessary piece
of funkeyism Surely General in the United States
Army might have spared his countrymen the lnorti-
ficaion of seeing name like his printed in the news