He was seized while heroically defending a barricade and carried off to

the forts. Some of the victims were shot on the spot, others were crowded

into the cellars of the Tuileries, while others were sent to the forts

and were there sometimes shot casually, more to make room than for any

other reason.

Barthélemy survived; at his trial he did not dream of defending himself,

but turned the prisoner’s dock into a platform from which to attack the

National Guard. To him we are indebted for many details of the exploits

that the guardians of order performed in secret, privately as it were.

Several times the president commanded him to be silent, and at last cut

short his speech with a sentence of penal servitude for fifteen or twenty

years if I remember right (I have not the record of the proceedings

before my eyes).

Barthélemy was sent with others to Belle-Île.

Two years later he escaped and turned up in London with a plan for going

back there and arranging the escape of six of the prisoners. The small

sum of money which he asked for (six or seven thousand francs) was

promised, and disguised as an abbé, with a breviary in his hand, he went

to Paris and to Belle-Île, arranged everything, and came back to London

for the money. I am told that the plan was not carried out on account of

a dispute whether Blanqui was to be released or not. The partisans of

Barbès and others chose rather to leave several friends in prison than to

release one enemy.

Barthélemy went away to Switzerland. He disagreed with all the parties

and cut himself off from them; to the followers of Ledru-Rollin he was a

sworn foe, but he was not friendly with his own side; he was too curt and

angular, his extreme opinions were unpleasant to the ‘leaders’ and scared

the weak. In Switzerland he devoted himself to the manufacture of arms.

He invented a special make of gun, which was loaded as it was fired and

in that way enabled a succession of bullets to be shot off at the same

target one after another. With this weapon he dreamed of killing Napoleon

III., but Barthélemy’s wild passions on two occasions saved Buonaparte

from the man whose determination was no less than Orsini’s.

In Ledru-Rollin’s party there was a desperate character—a duellist, rake

and scapegrace called Cournet.

Cournet was one of that special class who are often met with among Polish

Pans and Russian officers, particularly among retired cornets living in

the country; to it belonged Denis Davydov and his boon companion Burtsov,

Gagarin—‘the skull and cross bones’—and Lensky’s second, Zaryetsky. In

a vulgar form they are met with among the Prussian _Junkers_ and in the

Austrian barracks. In England they do not exist at all; in France such

a man is at home, he is like a fish in water, but a fish with polished,

varnished scales. These men are brave, reckless to the point of insolence

and senselessness, and very dull-witted. They live all their lives on the

memory of two or three incidents in which they have passed through fire

and water, have sliced off somebody’s ears, have stood under a shower of

bullets. It sometimes happens that they have first bragged of some daring

action and have then really performed it to prove their words. They are

dimly conscious that their recklessness is their strength; the only point

of interest of which they can boast, and they have a mortal passion for

boasting. With all that, they are often good comrades, especially in

good-humoured talk, and will stand up manfully for their own side till

the first tiff with the latter; altogether they have more military daring

than civic courage.

Idlers, reckless gamblers at cards and in life, _Lanzknechts_ of every

desperate enterprise, particularly if it is possible to put on a uniform

with the gold lace of a general, and to get money and decorations—and

afterwards to settle down again for some years in a billiard-room or a

café. And whether it is in helping Napoleon in Strasbourg, or the Duchess

of Berry in Blois, or the red republic in the Faubourg St. Antoine, they

do not care.... For them and for all France bravery and success cover

everything.

Cournet had begun his career in the fleet during the quarrel between

France and Portugal. With a handful of comrades he crept on to a

Portuguese frigate, overpowered the crew and took the frigate. This

incident determined and concluded Cournet’s future life. All France was

talking of this young midshipman; he went no further, and ended his

career with the exploit with which he began it, as completely as though

he had been killed in it. Later on he was expelled from the fleet.

Profound peace reigned in Europe. Cournet was bored to death and began

fighting on his own account. He used to say that he had fought twenty

duels; we may suppose that he had fought ten, and that is quite enough to

show that he could not be considered a rational man.

How he came to be a red republican I cannot tell. He played no

particular part among the French refugees. Various anecdotes were told

about him, such as that he had belaboured a police officer who had tried

to arrest him in Belgium and got away, and other pranks of the same kind.

He considered himself one of the foremost swordsmen in France.

The gloomy courage of Barthélemy, who was full of an unbridled

_amour-propre_ of his own sort, in contact with the arrogant valour of

Cournet, was bound to lead to disaster. They were jealous of each other.

But belonging to different circles, to hostile parties, they might all

their lives have avoided a meeting. Kind friends with brotherly zeal

helped to bring it about.

Barthélemy had a grudge against Cournet on account of letters sent to

him through Cournet from France which had never reached him. It is very

probable that Cournet was not to blame in this matter; gossip was soon

added to this grievance. Barthélemy had in Switzerland become acquainted

with an actress, an Italian girl, and was living with her. ‘What a pity,’

Cournet said, ‘that this most socialist of socialists should have let an

actress keep him!’ Barthélemy’s friends promptly wrote to him of this

saying. On getting the letter, Barthélemy threw up his work on the gun,

and his actress, and galloped off to London.

I have already mentioned that he was acquainted with Willich. The latter

was a pure-hearted and very good-natured man, a Prussian artillery

officer; he had gone over to the side of the revolution and become a

communist. He had fought at Baden for the people, being in control of the

artillery during Hecker’s insurrection, and when everything was crushed

he went to England. He arrived in England without a halfpenny, and tried

to give lessons in mathematics and German, but he had no luck. He gave

up his school-books, and regardless of his previous rank as an officer

heroically became a workman. With some comrades he set up a workshop for

making brooms and brushes. They did not meet with support. Willich did

not lose hope either of the resurrection of Germany or of the improvement

in his own fortunes; the latter, however, did not improve, and he carried

his hopes of a Teutonic republic with him to New York, where he obtained

a post as a government surveyor.

Willich perceived that the business with Cournet was taking a very

unfortunate turn, and offered his services as a mediator. Barthélemy had

the fullest confidence in Willich, and put his case in his hands. Willich

went to see Cournet. The Prussian’s firm, quiet tone had an effect on the

‘_première épée_’; he explained the matter of the letters; then in answer

to Willich’s question, whether he believed that Barthélemy was being kept

by an actress, Cournet said that he had repeated a rumour, and that he

regretted it.

‘That,’ said Willich, ‘is quite enough. Write what you have said on

paper, give it me, and I shall go home truly delighted.’

‘If you like,’ said Cournet, and took up the pen.

‘So you are going to apologise to a fellow like Barthélemy,’ observed

another refugee, who had come in at the end of the conversation.

‘Apologise? Why, do you take this for an apology?’

‘For the act of an honest man,’ said Willich, ‘who having repeated a

slander regrets it.’

‘No,’ said Cournet, flinging down the pen, ‘that I cannot do.’

‘Didn’t you say so just now?’

‘No, no, pardon me, but I cannot. Tell Barthélemy that “I said that

because I chose to say it.”’

‘Bravissimo!’ cried the other refugee.

‘On you, _monsieur_, rests the responsibility for the misfortunes that

will follow,’ Willich said to him, and went away.

This happened in the evening; he came to me before he had yet seen

Barthélemy; he walked mournfully up and down the room, saying: ‘Now a

duel is inevitable. What a misfortune that that refugee was present!’

‘There is no helping things now,’ I thought. ‘Reason is silent before

the wild flare of passions, and when one adds to that French blood,

the hatred of coteries and of different members of the chorus in the

amphitheatre...!’

Two days later I was walking along Pall Mall in the morning; Willich was

striding rapidly along. I stopped him; pale and agitated he turned to me.

‘What is it?’

‘Killed outright.’

‘Who?’

‘Cournet. I am running to Louis Blanc for advice what to do.’

‘Where is Barthélemy?’

‘He and his second and Cournet’s seconds are in prison. Only one of the

seconds was not arrested; by the English law Barthélemy may be hanged.’

Willich got on to an omnibus and was carried off. I was left in the

street. I stood pondering, then turned and went home again.

Two days later Willich came to me. Louis Blanc had of course taken an

active interest in the matter and had tried to consult some well-known

lawyers. It had been thought best to put the matter so that it should not

be known who fired and who was a witness. To do this it was necessary

that both sides should say the same thing. All were persuaded that the

English judge would not care to set police traps in the case of a duel.

This had to be conveyed to Cournet’s friends, but none of Willich’s

acquaintances visited them nor Ledru-Rollin. He therefore sent me to

Mazzini. I found him in great irritation.

‘I suppose you have come,’ he said, ‘about this murder.’ I looked at him,

paused with intention and then said, ‘About the case of Barthélemy.’

‘You know him, you are standing up for him; that’s all very well, though

I don’t understand it.... Cournet, poor Cournet had friends too....’

‘Who probably did not call him a criminal for having taken part in twenty

duels, in which apparently it was not he that was killed.’

‘Is this the time to recall that?’

‘I spoke in answer to you.’

‘Well, now is _he_ to be saved from the gallows?’

‘I imagine that no one will feel any particular pleasure at the hanging

of a man who behaved as Barthélemy did at the June barricades. Anyway, it

is not a question of him alone, but also of Cournet’s seconds.’

‘He won’t be hanged.’

‘There is no telling,’ a young English radical with his hair done _à la

Jésus_ observed coolly. He had not spoken till then, but had approved

Mazzini’s words with the motion of his head, the smoke of his cigar,

and with indistinct polyphones in which two or three vowels flattened

together made up a single sound.

‘Apparently you have nothing against it?’

‘We like and respect our law.’

‘Is not that,’ I observed, giving a good-natured air to my words,

‘the reason why all other peoples respect England more than they like

Englishmen?’

‘_Oeua?_’ inquired the radical, or perhaps it was an answer.

‘What is the point?’ Mazzini interrupted. I told him.

‘They have already thought of that themselves and have reached the same

conclusion.’

The trial of Barthélemy is extremely interesting. Rarely have the French

and English characters revealed themselves in such close juxtaposition,

and in such striking contrast.

Everything was absurd about the duel, beginning with the spot chosen

for it: they fought near Windsor. To do so they had to go by train

(which goes only to Windsor) some dozens of miles away from the coast

into the heart of the country, whereas people usually fight duels near

the frontier, where ships, boats, etc., are in readiness. The choice

of Windsor was moreover unsuitable in itself. The Queen’s palace, the

favourite residence of Queen Victoria, is of course guarded by the

police with double vigilance. I imagine that this place was chosen very

simply because of all the suburbs of London the French only know of two:

_Richemon’_ and _Vinssour_.

To be ready for any emergency the seconds took rapiers with sharpened

points, although they knew the duel was to be fought with pistols. When

Cournet fell, all, with the exception of one second who went off by

himself, and consequently managed to make his way quietly to Belgium,

returned together, not forgetting to take their rapiers with them. When

they reached Waterloo Station in London the police had been warned by

telegraph long before. There was no need for the police to search.

‘Four men with beards and moustaches, wearing caps, speaking French and

carrying rapiers,’ were arrested as they stepped out of the railway

carriage.

How could all this happen? It is not for us, I imagine, to teach the

French how to hide from the police. There is no police in the world more

vicious, alert, immoral and indefatigable in its zeal than the French. In

the days of Louis-Philippe both the seeker and the sought played their

parts in masterly style, every move was calculated; now that is not

necessary—the police in the Russian style say ‘check’ and ‘mate’ as they

move—but Louis-Philippe’s reign is not so far away. How could a man so

intelligent as Barthélemy and men so experienced as Cournet’s seconds

have made so many blunders?

The explanation is the same in both cases, absolute ignorance of England

and English law. They had heard that no one could be arrested without a

‘_óurrand_’; they had heard of a mysterious ‘_abéass korpu_’ by virtue

of which a man must be released on the demand of a lawyer, and imagined

that they would go home, change their clothes and be in Belgium when

next morning the disconcerted constable would come to fetch them, and

that he would infallibly be armed with a staff (as described in French

novels), and would say on seeing they were gone, ‘_Goddam!_’ All this in

spite of the fact that constables do not carry staves nor Englishmen say

‘_Goddam!_’

The prisoners were lodged in the Surrey prison. Then began visits to

them; ladies went to see them, and friends of the deceased Cournet went

to see them. The police, of course, at once perceived the state of the

case and how it had happened, though indeed one cannot give them much

credit for that; the friends and enemies of Barthélemy and Cournet talked

at the tops of their voices in restaurants and public-houses about every

detail of the duel, adding of course many which had not taken place and

could not possibly have taken place. But officially the police refused

to know this, so when some visitors asked permission to see Cournet’s

second, and others asked to see Barthélemy’s second, the police officer

went so far as to say to them: ‘Gentlemen, we have no knowledge who are

seconds and who are principals; the investigation has not yet discovered

all the details of the case. Please call your friends by their names.’

The first lesson!

At last the Assizes came to Surrey, and a day was fixed on which the

Lord Chief Justice Campbell would try the case concerning a Frenchman,

Cournet, murdered by some one unknown, and concerning the persons

connected with his murder.

I was then living near Primrose Hill; at seven o’clock on a cold and

foggy February morning I went out into Regent’s Park to cross it on my

way to the railway station.

That day has remained very vivid in my memory. From the fog that covered

the park and the white swans drowsily floating on the water, shrouded in

a reddish-yellow smoke, up to the minute when, long after midnight, I

sat with one of the lawyers at Verrey’s in Regent Street, and drank the

health of England in champagne. It is as clear as though it were before

my eyes.

I had never seen an English court before; the comicality of the mediaeval

_mise en scène_ awakens in us rather thoughts of an _opéra bouffe_ than

of an honourable tradition, but that could be forgotten on that day.

About ten o’clock the first masqueraders, heralds with two trumpeters,

appeared before the hotel in which Lord Campbell was staying, announcing

that Lord Campbell would judge such and such a case in the open court

at ten o’clock. We rushed to the doors of the court, which was a few

steps away; meanwhile, in a gilt carriage, Lord Campbell moved across

the square, wearing a wig which was only surpassed in size and beauty by

the wig of his coachman, upon which was perched a minute three-cornered

hat. Behind his carriage walked some twenty attorneys and solicitors,

picking up their gowns and wearing no hats, but instead woollen wigs made

intentionally as little like human hair as possible. At the door I almost

found myself before the bar at which the Lord was judging Cournet instead

of that where Lord Chief Justice Campbell was trying Barthélemy.

In the very doorway the mass of people pressed back by the police from

the court and the superhuman crush from behind caused a stoppage: it was

impossible to go forward while the crowd kept increasing behind; the

police, weary of half measures, joined hands and advanced to a united

attack—the front rank so squeezed me that I could hardly breathe—another

assault of the besiegers, and we found ourselves pressed out, thrown out

some ten paces beyond the doors into the street.

Had it not been for a lawyer of my acquaintance we should not have got

in at all, the court was packed full; he took us in by a special door,

and at last we were seated, mopping our faces and looking to see if our

watches and our money were still on us.

It is a remarkable thing that nowhere is there a crowd so numerous, so

close-packed, so terrible as in London, and it never in any case knows

how to form a queue; the English always behave with their national

obstinacy, they will go on pressing forward for two hours, and at last

they arrive somewhere.

I have many times marvelled at the entrances to the theatres; if people

would go in one behind the other, they could certainly enter in half an

hour, but as they all press forward in one mass, the majority of those in

front are thrust aside to the right and the left of the door, and there

they are overtaken by a sort of concentrated exasperation, and begin

squeezing from the sides on the slowly advancing stream in the middle

with no profit whatever to themselves, but as it were avenging their ill

luck on the others’ ribs.

There is a knocking on the door. A gentleman, also in masquerade attire,

shouts, ‘Who is there?’ ‘The Judge,’ is answered on the other side;

the doors are flung open, and Campbell enters, wearing a fur coat and

something like a lady’s dressing-gown; he bowed to all four quarters of

the compass and announced that the Assizes were opened.

The opinion of Barthélemy’s case formed by the judge, that is, by

Campbell, was clear from beginning to end, and he retained it in spite

of all the efforts of the French to turn it aside and change it for

the worse. There had been a duel. One man had been killed. Both were

Frenchmen, refugees, having different ideas of honour from ours; it was

difficult to make out which of them was in the right, which in the wrong.

One had fought in the barricades, the other was a notorious duellist. We

could not leave this crime unpunished, but we ought not to use the whole

force of the English law to crush foreigners, especially as they were

all straightforward people and had behaved honourably though stupidly.

Therefore we shall not inquire who is the murderer; in all probability

the murderer is the one who has escaped to Belgium; we charge the

prisoners at the bar with being accomplices and ask the jury whether they

are guilty of manslaughter or not. If found guilty by the jury, they

are in our hands; we shall condemn them to one of the lightest possible

punishments, and that will be the end of the case. If the jury acquit

them, we have nothing more to say to them, let them go wherever they

choose.

All this was a knife in the heart of the French of both parties!

The partisans of Cournet wanted to seize the opportunity of ruining

Barthélemy in the opinion of the court, and, without directly mentioning

him, indicated him as the murderer of Cournet.

Some of Barthélemy’s friends and he himself sought to cover Cournet and

company with shame and ignominy through a strange fact which had been

discovered during the course of the police investigation. The pistols had

been procured from a gunmaker, and after the duel they were sent back

to him. One pistol was found to be loaded. At the trial the gunmaker

appeared with the pistol and gave evidence that a little rag had been

put in under the bullet and gunpowder, so that it would not have gone off.

What had happened at the duel was this: Cournet fired at Barthélemy and

did not hit him. The cap of Barthélemy’s pistol snapped in the usual

way, but no shot followed. He was given another cap, but the same thing

happened. Then Barthélemy flung down his pistol and offered Cournet to

fight with rapiers. Cournet refused. It was decided to fire again, but

Barthélemy asked for another pistol, to which Cournet at once agreed. The

pistol was given him, a shot rang out and Cournet fell dead.

So the pistol that was taken to the gunmaker’s loaded was the very one

which had been in Barthélemy’s hands. How had the rag got into it? The

pistols had been procured by a friend of Cournet’s, Pardigan,[65] a

man who had once been on the staff of the _Voix du Peuple_ and had been

terribly disfigured in the June Days.

If it could have been proved that the rag had been put in intentionally,

that is, that Barthélemy’s enemies were taking him to be murdered, they

would have been covered with ignominy and ruined for ever and ever. For

this agreeable result Barthélemy would willingly have accepted ten years’

penal servitude or deportation.

On investigation it appeared that the rag taken out of the pistol

really had belonged to Pardigan. It had been torn off the duster with

which he used to rub his patent-leather boots. Pardigan said that he

had been cleaning the barrel by putting a rag on the end of a pencil,

and that possibly as it was turned round on it a bit was torn off, but

Barthélemy’s friends asked why was the rag of a regular oval shape, why

was it not crumpled up or tattered?...

Barthélemy’s enemies for their part had prepared a perfect legion of

witnesses _à décharge_ for the benefit of Baronée and his comrades; their

policy was that the attorney on Baronée’s side should question them about

the antecedents of Cournet and the others. They would sing their praises,

but would say nothing about Barthélemy and his seconds. Such unanimous

silence on the part of fellow-countrymen and co-religionists must, so

they thought, highly recommend the one side in the eyes of Campbell and

the public, and discredit the other. Calling witnesses costs money;

moreover, Barthélemy had not a whole legion of friends to whom he could

give the order to say one thing or another.

Cournet’s friends had succeeded in being eloquently silent already at the

police investigation.

Baronée, one of the arrested witnesses, was asked whether he knew who had

killed Cournet, or whom he suspected. Baronée replied that no threat, no

punishment could prevail upon him to say who had deprived Cournet of

life, although the dead man had been his best friend.

‘If I should have to languish in chains for ten years in a noisome

dungeon, even then I would not tell it.’

The solicitor cut him short with the cool observation: ‘Well, you have a

perfect right to refuse to answer, but you prove from your words that you

know the guilty party.’

And with all that they wanted to delude—whom?—Lord Campbell? I should

like to append his portrait, to show the full measure of the absurdity

of the attempt. Lord Campbell, who had grown old and wrinkled, sitting

in his judicial armchair, reading in an indifferent voice with a Scotch

accent the most terrible _évidence_, and unravelling the most complex

cases with convincing clearness—was to be deluded by a handful of

Parisian _clubistes_!... Lord Campbell, who never raises his voice, never

loses his temper, never smiles, goes no further at the most absurd or

critical moments than blowing his nose.... Lord Campbell with the face

of a peevish old woman, in which if you look intently you can clearly

discern the celebrated metamorphosis that so unpleasantly surprised

Little Red Riding Hood; you see that it is not grandmamma, but a wolf in

a wig, a woman’s dressing-gown and a fur-trimmed cape.

But his lordship paid them back with interest.

After long discussions concerning the rag and after Pardigan’s evidence,

Baronée’s counsel began to call witnesses.

First, an old refugee who had been a comrade of Barbès and Blanqui stood

up. To begin with, he took the Bible with a certain air of repugnance,

then made a gesture, as though to say, well, come what may—took the oath

and craned his neck forward.

‘Have you long been acquainted with Cournet?’ one of the lawyers asked

him.

‘_Citoyen_,’ said the refugee in French, ‘from the days of my youth,

devoted to a single cause, I have given my life to the holy cause of

freedom and equality ...’ and was going on in the same strain.

But the lawyer stopped him, and turning to the interpreter, observed:

‘The witness has apparently not understood the question. Translate it

into French.’

After him followed another. When five or six Frenchmen with beards that

would go into a wineglass, bald foreheads, enormous moustaches and hair

cropped _à la Nicolas_ or falling on their shoulders, and wearing red

neckties, had been called, one after another, to repeat variations on the

following theme: ‘Cournet was a man whose merits surpassed his virtues,

though his virtues were equalled by his merits. He was the ornament of

the refugee community, the honour of his party, his wife is inconsolable,

and his friends are only consoled by the fact that the lives of such men

as Baronée and his comrades have been spared.’

‘And do you know Barthélemy?’

‘Yes. He is a French refugee.... I have seen him, but I know nothing

about him.’ With this the witness made a smacking sound with his lips _à

la française_.

‘Witness So-and-so ...’ said the lawyer.

‘Allow me,’ observed Grandmamma Campbell in a voice of soft sympathy,

‘do not trouble them further. The number of witnesses testifying to the

virtues of the deceased Cournet and the accused Baronée seems to us

unnecessary and prejudicial, we do not regard either the one or the other

as a man of such bad character that his honesty and decent behaviour

need be proved with such persistence. Moreover, Cournet is dead, and we

have no occasion to inquire anything about him. We are called upon to

judge nothing but the manner of his murder; everything relating to that

crime is of importance for us, but there is no necessity for us to hear

incidents in the past life of the accused, whom we equally accept as very

respectable gentlemen. For my part I have no suspicions in regard to

Monsieur Baronée.’

‘But why have you such sly and laughing eyes, Grandmamma?’

‘Because I cannot laugh at you with my lips, dear grandchildren, on

account of my rank, and so I laugh with my eyes.’

Of course, after that the witnesses with their hair on their shoulders,

and those with their hair standing up in a shock, in military uniform,

or with a _cache-nez_ of all the seven colours of the rainbow, were

dismissed unheard.

Then the case made rapid progress.

One of the lawyers for the defence, putting it to the jury that the

accused, as foreigners entirely unacquainted with English law, were

entitled to every indulgence, added: ‘You will hardly believe, gentlemen

of the jury, that Monsieur Baronée knew so little of England, that in

answer to the question, Do you know who killed Cournet? he answered that

if he were to be kept in chains for ten years in a prison dungeon, even

then he would not tell the name. You see that Monsieur Baronée has still

the most mediaeval ideas about England, since he could imagine that for

refusing to answer he could be put into chains and thrown for ten years

into prison. I trust,’ he added, not restraining his laughter, ‘that

the unfortunate event through which M. Baronée has been for some months

deprived of his liberty has convinced him that prisons in England have

somewhat improved since the Middle Ages and are scarcely inferior to the

prisons in some other countries. Let us show the accused that our courts

of justice, too, are humane and just,’ etc., etc.

The jury, one half of whom were foreigners, found the accused guilty.

Then Campbell turned to the prisoners in the dock, reminded them of the

severity of the English law, reminded them that a foreigner when he

steps upon English soil enjoys all the rights of an Englishman and must

therefore bear an equal responsibility before the law. Then he passed to

the difference of national manners and said, finally, that he would not

consider it just to punish them with the utmost severity of the law, and

therefore condemned them to _two months’_ imprisonment.

The public, the common people, the lawyers and all of us were satisfied;

a sharp sentence had been expected, and no one had dared to dream of less

than three or four years as the minimum.

Who were not satisfied?

The condemned men.

I went up to Barthélemy, he pressed my hand gloomily and said: ‘That

Pardigan has got off clear, and Baronée ...’ he shrugged his shoulders.

As I was going out of the court I met the lawyer of my acquaintance. He

was standing with Baronée.

‘I would rather have been sent to prison for a year than mixed up with

that scoundrel Barthélemy.’

The case was over by about ten o’clock in the evening. When we reached

the railway-station we found crowds of Frenchmen and Englishmen on the

platform, loudly and noisily discussing the case. The majority of the

French were pleased with the sentence, though they felt that it was not a

victory for the other side of the Channel.

In the train the French struck up the Marseillaise.

‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘justice before everything. On this occasion let us

sing Rule Britannia!’ And Rule Britannia we sang!

II

BARTHÉLEMY

Two years had passed. Once more Barthélemy stood before Lord Campbell,

and this time the stern old man, putting on his black cap, pronounced a

different sentence on him.

In 1854 Barthélemy withdrew himself more than ever from every one; for

ever busy with something, he showed himself very little—he was preparing

something in secret; the people who lived with him knew no more than the

rest. I saw him from time to time; he always showed me great sympathy and

confidence, but did not say anything special.

All of a sudden there was rumour of a double murder: Barthélemy had

killed an obscure Englishman,[66] a small tradesman, and then the

policeman who tried to arrest him. There was no kind of explanation, no

key to the mystery. Barthélemy stood mute before his judges, remained

mute in Newgate. From the very first he admitted the murder of the

policeman: for this he could be sentenced to the death penalty, and so he

stopped short at that admission—defending, so to speak, _his right_ to be

hanged for the last murder without reference to the first.

This was what we found out by degrees. Barthélemy was intending to go to

Holland. Dressed for the journey with a passport _visa-ed_ in one pocket

and a revolver in the other, accompanied by the woman with whom he lived,

Barthélemy went at ten o’clock in the evening to an Englishman, a maker

of soda-water. When he knocked a maid-servant opened the door to him;

the man himself invited them into the parlour and after that went with

Barthélemy into his own room.

The maid heard the conversation growing louder and passing into abuse;

then her master opened the door and thrust Barthélemy out; then

Barthélemy took the pistol out of his pocket and fired at him. The man

fell dead. Barthélemy rushed away; the terrified Frenchwoman disappeared

before he did and was luckier. A policeman who had heard the shot stopped

Barthélemy in the street; the latter threatened him with his pistol,

but the policeman did not let him go. Barthélemy fired.... This time it

is more than probable that he did not mean to kill the man, but only to

frighten him; but trying to pull away one arm and pressing the pistol

with the other hand at such close quarters, he wounded him mortally.

Barthélemy set off running, but by then the police had seen him, and he

was caught.

Barthélemy’s enemies, not concealing their delight, declared that this

was simply an act of robbery, that Barthélemy had meant to rob the

Englishman. But the tradesman was not at all rich. It is hard to suppose

that any man, not utterly mad, would go to commit an act of open robbery

in one of the most populous quarters of London, to a house where he was

known, at ten o’clock in the evening, accompanied by a woman: and all

that to steal a paltry hundred pounds. (That was about what was found in

the murdered man’s chest.)

Some months previously Barthélemy had opened a workshop for making

stained glass with patterns and arabesques, and had printed them by a

special process. He had to pay sixty pounds for the patent and wanted

fifteen pounds to make up that sum; he borrowed the money from me and

repaid it very punctually. It was clear that there was something more

in it than simple theft. Barthélemy’s ruling idea, his passion, his

monomania remained. That he was going to Holland only in order to make

his way to Paris was a fact known by many.

Barely three or four men stopped to ponder before this bloody affair;

the others were all panic-stricken and turned against Barthélemy. To be

hanged in England is not respectable; to have any connection with a man

condemned for murder is ‘shocking’; his nearest friends drew back in

horror.

I was then living in Twickenham. When I came home one evening two

refugees were awaiting me: ‘We have come to you,’ they said, ‘to assure

you that we have not had the faintest share in Barthélemy’s terrible

crime;—we had work in common, one has to work with all sorts of men. Now

it will be said ... it will be thought....’

‘But have you really come all the way from London to Twickenham to tell

me that?’ I asked.

‘Your opinion is of very great value to us.’

‘Upon my word, gentlemen! Why, I was a friend of Barthélemy’s myself—and

worse than you, because I had no work with him; but I am not denying him

now. I know nothing about the case, the verdict and the sentence I leave

to Lord Campbell, while I weep to think that powers so young and so rich,

that a talent that has been so trained by the bitter conflict and hard

environment in which he lived—that in the flower of his age he should

lose his life at the hand of a hangman.’

The English were impressed by his behaviour in prison: steady, composed,

melancholy without despair, firm without _jactance_, he knew that all

was over for him, and listened to his sentence with the same immovable

composure with which he had once stood under a shower of bullets on the

barricades.

He wrote to his father and the girl he loved. I have read the letter to

his father: not a high-flown sentence, the utmost simplicity; he tries

gently to comfort the old man, as though he were not speaking of himself.

The Catholic priest who _ex officio_ visited him in his prison, an

intelligent and kind-hearted man, took the greatest interest in him

and even petitioned Palmerston for a commutation of the sentence, but

Palmerston refused. The priest’s conversations with Barthélemy were

gentle and full of humane feeling on both sides. Barthélemy wrote to him,

‘I am very grateful to you for your kind words, for your consolations. If

I could have been turned into a believer, you only could have converted

me; but what is to be done? I have no faith!’ After his death the priest

wrote to a lady of my acquaintance: ‘What a man that unhappy Barthélemy

was! Had he lived longer, his heart might have been opened to grace. I

pray for his soul!’

I dwell on this story partly because _The Times_ related with malicious

spite Barthélemy’s mockery at the sheriff.

A few hours before he was hanged, one of the sheriffs, learning that

Barthélemy had refused spiritual ministrations, thought it his duty

to turn him into the path of salvation, and began plying him with the

pietistic twaddle printed in English halfpenny tracts and given away

freely at the street corners. Barthélemy was bored by the exhortations of

the sheriff; the apostle in the gold chain observed this and, assuming a

solemn air, said to him: ‘Only think, young man, that in a few hours you

will be answering not me but God.’

‘And what do you think?’ Barthélemy asked. ‘Does God speak French? If He

doesn’t I shan’t be able to answer Him.’

The sheriff turned pale with indignation, and his pallor and indignation

passed through the sighs and smiles of all the sheriffs, mayors and

aldermen seated in the court, until it reached the immense sheets of

_The Times_.

But no proselytising sheriff prevented Barthélemy from dying in that

grave and nervously exalted spirit which he sought and which it is

so natural to seek in the last hours of life. The sentence was read.

Barthélemy observed to one of his friends that if he was to die he would

have preferred to go out quietly, without witnesses, in prison, rather

than to be strangled by the hangman in a public place before crowds

of people.—‘Nothing is easier; to-morrow, next day, I will bring you

strychnine.’ As though one was not enough, two undertook to do it. By

that time he was guarded as a condemned criminal, that is, very strictly;

nevertheless, a few days later his friends obtained strychnine and passed

it in to him concealed in his linen. They waited to make sure that he had

found it. They were satisfied of this, too....

Afraid of being held responsible, one of them, upon whom suspicion might

have fallen, wanted to leave England for a time. He asked me for the loan

of a few pounds for the journey; I agreed to give it him. Could anything

be simpler? But I mention this insignificant incident to show how every

secret plot of the French is discovered, how through their love of a fine

_mise en scène_ numbers of outsiders are compromised in every affair in

which they have a hand.

On Sunday evening there were several people, Italian and other refugees,

at my house as usual. There were ladies of the party on that day. We sat

down to dinner very late, at eight o’clock. At nine o’clock a man I knew

pretty well came in. He used often to come and see me, and so there was

nothing striking about his dropping in; but he so distinctly expressed

all over his face, ‘I am saying nothing,’ that my visitors looked at each

other.

‘Won’t you have something to eat or a glass of wine?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said the visitor, sinking into a chair as though weighed down by

the burden of his secret.

After dinner, before every one, he called me away into another room and,

after telling me that Barthélemy had received the poison (a fact which I

knew already), asked me for the money for the man who was leaving England.

‘With the greatest pleasure; I will bring it you at once,’ I said.

‘No. I am staying the night in Twickenham. I shall see you to-morrow

morning. I need not tell you—beg you—that no human being....’

I smiled.

When I went back into the dining-room a young girl said inquiringly: ‘I

suppose he had something to tell you about Barthélemy...?’

At eight o’clock next morning François came in and said that a Frenchman

whom he had never seen before insisted upon seeing me.

This was the very friend of Barthélemy who wanted to get away

‘unnoticed.’ I flung on my overcoat and went out into the garden, where

he was waiting for me. There I met a sickly-looking, fearfully thin,

black-haired Frenchman (I afterwards learned that he had spent years in

Belle-Île, and afterwards had been literally dying of hunger in London).

He was wearing a shabby overcoat, which nobody would have noticed; but

the travelling cap, the immense scarf wrapped round his neck would have

attracted attention in Moscow, in Paris or in Naples.

‘What has happened?’

‘Has So-and-so been to you?’

‘He is here now.’

‘Did he speak of the money?’

‘That is all settled, the money is ready.’

‘I am really very grateful.’

‘When are you going?’

‘To-day or to-morrow.’

Towards the end of our conversation our common acquaintance joined us.

When the would-be traveller had gone: ‘Tell me, please, why did he come?’

I asked, left alone with my friend.

‘For the money.’

‘But you could have given it him.’

‘That is true, but he wanted to make your acquaintance; he asked me

whether you would like it. What could I say?’

‘Very much, of course; only I don’t know whether he has chosen a good

moment.’

‘Why, has he hindered you?’

‘No; but I hope the police won’t hinder his getting away.’

Fortunately this did not occur. While he was on his way his comrade began

to have doubts of the poison they had procured; after pondering a little,

he gave the remains to his dog. The day passed, the dog was still alive;

another passed, still alive. Panic-stricken, he rushed off to Newgate,

obtained an interview with Barthélemy through a grating and, seizing a

favourable moment, whispered to him, ‘Have you got it?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Well, you see, I have great doubts. You had better not take it. I have

tried it on my dog, it had no effect!’

Barthélemy’s head sank—then, raising it with his eyes full of tears, he

said: ‘What are you doing to me!’

‘We will get something else.’

‘No need,’ answered Barthélemy. ‘If it is inevitable, so be it.’

And from that moment he began to prepare for death, thought no more of

poison and wrote some memoir, which was not given after his death to the

friend to whom he had bequeathed it (the one who was hurrying away).

On Saturday, the 19th of January, we learnt that the priest had visited

Palmerston, and his petition had been refused.

A painful Sunday followed that day. A small group of visitors dispersed

gloomily in the evening. I was left alone. I went to bed, fell asleep

and at once woke up. And so in seven, then six, then five hours he,

full of strength, youth and passion, in perfect health, would be led

out and killed—killed without pity, without anger or satisfaction, and,

what is more, with a sort of pharisaical compassion.... Seven o’clock

began striking in the church tower. _Now_ the procession was moving and

Calcraft was on the spot: would his iron nerves serve poor Barthélemy

now? My teeth were chattering.

At eleven o’clock in the morning D. came in.

‘Is it over?’ I asked.

‘It is over.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Yes.’

_The Times_ told me the rest.

Opposite the article in _The Times_ Abbé Roux had printed: ‘The Murderer

Barthélemy.’

When all was in readiness—so _The Times_ tells the story—he asked for

the letter of the girl to whom he used to write, and I believe a lock of

her hair, or some such souvenir; he held them tight in his hand when the

hangman went up to him ... and there crushed in his stiffened fingers

they were found by the men who went to take his body from the gibbet.

‘Human justice,’ so says _The Times_, ‘was satisfied.’ I suppose so—but

it would not have seemed too little for the devil’s!

At this point I should stop. But in my story, just as in life itself,

beside the giant’s footprints let the hoofprints of asses and swine

remain too.

When Barthélemy was arrested he had not enough money to pay a solicitor:

besides, he did not want to employ one. An unknown lawyer, called Hering,

offered to defend him, obviously as a means of advertising himself.

His defence was feeble; but it must not be forgotten that his task was

exceptionally difficult; Barthélemy kept silent and did not want Hering

to speak about the principal charge. Anyway, Hering did a great deal,

wasted time, bustled about. When the day of execution was fixed, Hering

came to the prison to say good-bye; Barthélemy was touched, he thanked

him and among other things said to him: ‘I have nothing, I cannot repay

your trouble with anything but my gratitude. I should have liked to leave

you something, at least for a keepsake, but I have nothing I could offer

you. Perhaps my overcoat?’

‘I shall be very grateful to you, I meant to ask you for it.’

‘With the greatest pleasure,’ said Barthélemy, ‘but it is a wretched

thing.’

‘Oh, I am not going to wear it; I will tell you frankly, I have already

disposed of it, and very well too.’

‘Disposed of it?’ repeated Barthélemy in astonishment.

‘Yes, to Madame Tussaud for her special gallery.’

Barthélemy shuddered.

When he was being taken to be hanged, he suddenly thought of this and

said to the sheriff: ‘Oh, I was quite forgetting to ask you, on no

account let my overcoat be given to Hering.’[67]

III

NOT GUILTY

‘Dr. Simon Bernard was arrested yesterday at his own lodging, in

connection with the Orsini affair....’

One has to have lived some years in England to understand how

surprising such news is ... how at first one cannot believe it ... what

_Continental_ emotions it stirs in one’s heart!

The public suffers in England, and fairly frequently, from periodical

panics, and in such times of fluster woe to anything that comes in

its way. Panic is, as a rule, unsparing and merciless, but it has the

advantage of being quickly over. Panic is not vindictive, it seeks to be

forgotten as quickly as possible.

It must not be assumed that the cowardly feeling of cautious and uneasy

self-preservation is innate in the English character. It is the effect

of growing fat and rich and of all thoughts and passions being set on

acquiring wealth. Timidity has been instilled into the English by the

capitalists and petty-bourgeois; they give a nervous instability to their

official world, which in a country of representative institutions is

continually adapting itself to the character, the votes and the money

of the possessing classes. They are the dominant element, and they lose

their heads at every unexpected incident and, having no need to stand on

ceremony, they show themselves in all their helpless, clumsy cowardice,

undisguised by the tawdry and faded _foulard_ of French rhetoric. One

must know how to wait for Capital to recover itself and to be reassured

on the score of profits, then all will go on its accustomed way again.

By the arrest of Bernard, they thought to escape from the wrath of Caesar

for Orsini’s having prepared his bombs on English soil. Pusillanimous

concessions commonly cause irritation, and, instead of saying thank

you, the menacing notes grew still more menacing, the warlike articles

in the French newspapers smelt more strongly than ever of gunpowder. The

capitalists turned pale and dizzy, they already saw in their mind’s eye

screw-steamers, red trousers, red bullets, a red glow in the sky, the

Bank turned into _Mabille_, with the historical inscription: _Ici l’on

danse_. What were they to do? They were ready not only to give up and

demolish Dr. Simon Bernard, but possibly to undermine and demolish Mount

St. Bernard, if only the damnable vision of red trousers and black beards

could be dissipated, if only the wrath of their ally could be changed to

mercy.

The finest meteorological instrument in England, Palmerston, who

indicated with the greatest fidelity the temperature of the middle

classes, translated ‘Very alarming’ into the Conspiracy Bill. By this

Bill, if it had become law, every embassy with a little vigilance and

zeal might have thrown any enemy of their respective governments into

prison, and in certain cases have shipped them off home.

But fortunately the temperature of the island is not alike in all

classes, and we shall soon see the great wisdom of the English

distribution of wealth, which releases a considerable proportion of the

people from all anxiety about capital. If every man in England were a

capitalist, the Conspiracy Bill would have been passed, and Simon Bernard

would have been hanged or sent to Cayenne. On hearing of the Conspiracy

Bill and the overwhelming probability of its passing, the old Anglo-Saxon

feeling of independence was stirred; men felt sorry to lose their ancient

right of asylum, of which all sorts of people had taken advantage, from

the Huguenots to the Catholics of 1793, from Voltaire and Paoli[68]

to Charles X. and Louis-Philippe. The Englishman has no special love

for foreigners, still less for refugees, whom he regards as guilty of

poverty, a vice he never forgives—but he clings to his right of asylum;

he will not permit it to be touched with impunity, any more than his

right of public meeting and of the freedom of the press.

When he proposed the Conspiracy Bill, Palmerston reckoned, and very

confidently, on the depression of the British spirits; he was thinking

of one class which is very powerful, but forgot the other, which is very

numerous.

A few days before the Bill came before the House, London was covered

with placards; a committee formed for the purpose of opposing the new

law was calling a meeting for the following Sunday in Hyde Park, at

which it would propose an address to the Queen. This address demanded

that Palmerston and his associates should be declared traitors to their

country and should be brought up for trial, and petitioned the Queen,

should the Bill be passed, to exercise her prerogative and refuse to

ratify it. The number of people expected in the Park was so great that

the committee announced that it was impossible to make speeches, and

arranged to present the parts of the address to the people by telegraphic

signs. There were rumours that young working men from all parts of

England were arriving for Saturday, that the railways would bring tens of

thousands of men violently opposed to the Bill. A meeting of two hundred

thousand men might be reckoned on. What could the police do with them?

To use troops against a lawful and unarmed meeting assembled in order to

send a petition to the Queen was impossible; moreover, in order to do

so, the Mutiny Bill was essential. And the meeting would have had to be

prevented. On Friday, Milner Gibson made his speech against Palmerston’s

Bill. Palmerston was so convinced of his triumph, that he waited smiling

for the division. Influenced by the prospect of the meeting, a proportion

of his own followers voted against him, and when a majority of more

than thirty votes in support of Milner Gibson was announced, Palmerston

thought that the teller had made a mistake, questioned him, stood up to

speak, said nothing, but in a dazed way uttered a few incoherent words,

accompanying them with a forced smile, and then sank into his chair to

the din of hostile applause.

The meeting was made impossible, there was no longer any reason to travel

from Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle-on-Tyne.... The Conspiracy Bill had

fallen, and with it Palmerston and his colleagues.

The classically bombastic and frigidly conservative Ministry of Derby,

with the Jewish melodies of Disraeli and the diplomatic subtleties of the

days of Castlereagh, replaced them.

On Sunday between three and four o’clock I went to call on Mrs. Milner

Gibson. I wanted to congratulate her. She lived near Hyde Park.

The placards had been removed, and men were walking with printed

proclamations hanging before and behind them, announcing that there

would be no meeting on account of the defeat of the Bill and the fall

of the Ministry. Nevertheless, since two hundred thousand visitors had

been invited, it could hardly be expected that the Park would be empty.

Everywhere there were dense throngs of people, orators mounted on chairs

or tables were delivering speeches, and the crowds were more excited than

usual. A few policemen sauntered about with maidenly bashfulness, noisy

groups of street boys sang at the top of their voices, ‘Pop goes the

weasel!’ Suddenly some one pointing to the meagre figure of a Frenchman

with moustaches, in a shabby hat, shouted: ‘A French spy!’ Instantly the

boys rushed after him. The frightened ‘spy’ tried in vain to make off

and, thrown down on the ground, progressed no longer on his feet, but was

dragged triumphantly by the hair to the shout of ‘French spy! Into the

Serpentine with him!’ The boys dragged him to the water, dipped him in

(it was February), pulled him out and laid him on the bank, laughing and

whistling. The drenched and shivering Frenchman floundered on the sand,

shouting _in the Park_: ‘Cabman! Cabman!’

So was repeated, fifty years afterwards in Hyde Park, the famous scene of

Turgenev’s ‘We are drowning a Frenchman!’[69]

This prologue _à la Priestnitz_[70] to Bernard’s trial showed how widely

spread was the general indignation. The English people really were angry,

and saved their country from the slur with which the ‘conglomerated

mediocrity,’ to use J. S. Mill’s expression, would certainly have

disgraced it.

England is great and endurable _only_ with the fullest preservation of

its rights and liberties, which are not harmonised into one, nor freed

from the trappings of mediaevalism and the broadcloth of puritanism, but

yet give free play to the Englishman’s proud independence and unwavering

confidence in the basis of law.

What the English people instinctively understood was as little grasped by

Derby as by Palmerston. Derby’s anxiety was to reassure the capitalists

and to make every possible concession to the irate ally; he wanted

to show the French that even without the Conspiracy Bill he could do

wonders. In his excessive zeal he made two mistakes.

Palmerston’s Ministry had demanded the conviction of Bernard on a charge

of _misdemeanour_, namely for bad behaviour, for rascally conduct, in

short for a misdeed which did not involve a greater punishment than three

years’ imprisonment. And so neither the jury nor the lawyers nor the

public would have taken any particular interest in the case, and it would

probably have gone against Bernard. Derby insisted on trying Bernard for

_felony_, that is, for serious crime, which entitles the judge in case

the prisoner is found guilty to sentence him to be hanged.[71] This could

not be allowed to pass; moreover, to increase the gravity of the charge

while the accused is on his trial is utterly opposed to the sense of

justice of the English.

Palmerston, in one of his acutest panics after Orsini’s attempt, had

pitched on a harmless little book by a man called Adams, discussing the

question when tyrannicide is permissible and when it is not, and brought

the publisher of it, Truelove, to trial.

All the independent press looked with indignation at this Continental

proceeding. The prosecution of the pamphlet was utterly senseless.

There are no tyrants in England, and no one in France would hear about

a pamphlet written in English; besides, worse things are published in

England every day!

Derby, accustomed to the turf and horse-racing, wanted to overtake and

if possible outstrip Palmerston. Felix Pyat had, in the name of the

revolutionary commune, written a manifesto justifying Orsini; no one was

willing to publish it; the Polish refugee, Tchorszewski, put the name of

his bookshop on Pyat’s pamphlet. Derby ordered the copies to be seized,

Tchorszewski to be brought up for trial.

Every drop of Anglo-Saxon blood that was still full of iron and untainted

by gold was fired by this new insult; all the organs of Scotland,

Ireland, and of course England (except two or three _kept_ journals),

looked upon these efforts as a criminal attempt upon the freedom of the

press, and asked whether the Government was in its senses, or had gone

out of its mind.

It was in this atmosphere so favourable to the Government prosecution

that the trial of Bernard, this judicial Waterloo of England, as we said

at the time in the _Bell_, began in the Old Bailey.

I watched Bernard’s trial from beginning to end. I was at all the

sittings in the Old Bailey (only, once I was two hours late) and I do not

regret it. The first trial of Barthélemy and the trial of Bernard showed

me clearly how far more mature in the sphere of law England is than

France.

The French Government and the English Ministry took immense pains to

secure Bernard’s conviction; the trial cost the two Governments as much

as thirty thousand pounds sterling, _i.e._ 750,000 francs. A regular mob

of French spies stayed in London, travelled to Paris and back again to

say one word; to be in readiness in case of need, families were sent for,

doctors of medicine, jockeys, governors of prisons, women, children ...

and all this crew stayed in expensive hotels, receiving £1 (25 francs)

a day for their keep. Caesar was terrified, the Carthaginians were

terrified. And the scowling, slow-moving Englishmen saw it all, and,

while the case was being got up, the French spies in the Haymarket and

Coventry Street were pursued by boys, hissed and pelted with mud; more

than once the English police had to protect them.

Edwin James based his defence on this hatred for political spies and for

their unceremonious invasion of London. His treatment of the English

spies surpassed all imagination. I do not know how Scotland Yard or the

French Government could have compensated them for the torture that Edwin

James made them endure.

An individual called Rogers bore witness that at a club in Leicester

Square Bernard had said this and that about the coming end of Napoleon.

‘Were you there?’ asked E. James.

‘Yes.’

‘So you are interested in politics?’

‘No.’

‘What leads you to go to political clubs, then?’

‘The duties of the service.’

‘I don’t understand; what sort of service?’

‘I serve under Sir Richard Maine.’[72]

‘Oh ... well, are you given instructions?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are they?’

‘I am told to listen to what is said, and to report it to my superiors.’

‘And you get a salary for that?’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case you are a spy. You might have told me that before.’

The Queen’s Counsel, Fitzroy Kelly, turning to Lord Campbell, one of

the four judges summoned to judge Bernard, asked him to protect the

witness from the lawyer’s impertinent hints. Campbell with his invariable

dispassionateness advised James not to insult the witness. James

protested that he had no intention of insulting him; ‘The word spy,’

he said, ‘is a plain English word, and is the word that describes his

duty.’ Campbell assured him that it would be better to use another word.

The lawyer looked up some dictionary and read the definition of the word

spy: ‘Spy—a person employed by the police for the purpose of listening,’

etc.—‘and Rogers has just told us that he is employed for pay by Sir

Richard Maine (here by a motion of the head he indicated Sir Richard

Maine himself) to listen at clubs and report what takes place there.’ And

so he begged his Lordship to excuse him, but he could find no other name,

and then, turning to the wretched creature upon whom all eyes were fixed,

and who was mopping his perspiring brow for the second time, he asked:

‘Spy Rogers, possibly you have received pay from the French Government,

too?’

The tortured Rogers was roused to fury and replied that he had never

served any despotic government. Edwin James, addressing the public, said,

amid Homeric laughter, ‘Our spy Rogers is for representative government.’

Cross-examining the police agent who had seized Bernard’s papers, he

asked him by whom he had been accompanied? (The maid had testified that

he had not been alone.)

‘My uncle.’

‘And what is your uncle’s calling in life?’

‘He is an omnibus conductor.’

‘What did he go with you for?’

‘He asked me to take him with me, as he had never seen a man arrested or

papers seized before.’

‘Your uncle is of an inquiring turn of mind. And by the way, you found a

letter from Orsini at Dr. Bernard’s; that letter was in Italian, but you

had it translated; it was not your uncle, I suppose, translated it?’

‘No, the letter was translated by Ubicini.’[73]

‘An Englishman?’

‘Yes, an Englishman.’

‘I have never happened to hear that English surname. Is Mr. Ubicini a

literary man, then?’

‘He translates as part of his duties.’

‘So your friend, perhaps, like the spy Rogers, serves under Sir Richard

Maine’ (again a nod in the direction of Sir Richard).

‘Just so.’

‘You should have told me that before.’

He did not go so far with the French spies, though they caught it from

him, too.

What I liked more than anything was that, having called into the

witness-box some French or Belgian tavern-keeper to put a very

unimportant question to him, he suddenly stopped, and turning to Lord

Campbell said: ‘The question I wish to put to the witness is of such a

nature that it may embarrass him to answer it in the presence of the

French agents. I ask you to send them out of the court for the time.’

‘Usher, show the French agents out of the court,’ said Campbell, and

the usher, wearing a silk mantle and carrying a staff in his hand, led

a dozen spies with little beards and wonderful moustaches, wearing

little gold chains and signet rings, across the crowded court. Such a

procession, accompanied by scarcely suppressed laughter, must have been

an ordeal in itself.

The details of the case are well known. I will not describe it.

When the witnesses had been cross-examined and the prosecutor and the

defending counsel had delivered their speeches, Campbell coldly summed up

the case, reading through the whole of the evidence.

Campbell was summing up for two hours.

‘How can his chest and lungs stand it?’ I said to a policeman.

The policeman looked at me with a feeling of pride and, offering me his

snuff-box, observed: ‘That is nothing for him! When Palmer was tried, he

was summing up for six hours and a half and was none the worse—he is a

man!’

Englishmen have marvellously powerful constitutions. How they store

up such a reserve of strength and how it lasts so long a period is a

problem. We in Russia have no conception of such activity and such work,

especially in our three upper ‘grades.’ Campbell, for instance, had

reached the Old Bailey precisely at ten o’clock; he was presiding over

the case without a break till two. At two the judges went out for a

quarter of an hour or twenty minutes and then remained in court till five

or half-past. Campbell wrote down the whole of the evidence with his own

hand. In the evening of the same day he appeared in the House of Lords

and delivered long speeches in the correct style with unnecessary Latin

quotations, pronounced in such a way that Horace himself would not have

understood his own lines.

Gladstone, having a year and a half to spare between his first

appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer and his second, wrote

commentaries on Homer. And the ever-youthful Palmerston gallops about

on horseback, turns up at soirées and dinner-parties, everywhere

polite, everywhere talkative and inexhaustible, displays his learning

at examinations and prize-givings, and his liberalism, patriotic pride

and generous sympathies in after-dinner speeches, looks after his own

ministry, and to some extent all the others, as well as controlling

Parliament!

This toughness and habit of intense work is the secret of the English

constitution, education and climate. The Englishman studies little,

slowly and late; from his earliest years he drinks port and sherry,

overeats himself and builds up a constitution of iron; though he

practises no school gymnastics of the German Turner-Uebungen style, he

gallops over hedges and ditches, drives every sort of horse, rows in

every kind of boat and can make any one see rainbow-stars with his fists.

At the same time, life is set in a definite rut and passes regularly from

a certain sort of birth by certain avenues to a certain sort of funeral;

passions trouble it little. An Englishman loses his fortune with less

fuss than a Frenchman gains his; he shoots himself more simply than a

Frenchman travels to Geneva or Brussels.

‘_Vous voyez, vous mangez votre veau froid chaudement_,’ an old

Englishman said, wishing to explain to a Frenchman the difference between

the English character and the French. ‘_Et nous mangeons notre bœuf chaud

froidement._’ That is why they last out till they are eighty....

Before I go back to the trial I must explain why the policeman offered

me his snuff-box. On the first day of the trial I was sitting on the

reporters’ bench; when Bernard was led into the dock he looked round the

court, which was packed to overflowing—not one face he knew; he dropped

his eyes, glanced near at hand and, meeting mine, gave me a slight nod,

as though asking whether I cared to recognise our acquaintance or not;

I got up and greeted him like a friend. This was at the very beginning,

that is, in one of those moments of absolute stillness, in which every

rustle is heard, every movement noticed. Saunders, one of the heads of

the detective police, whispered to one of his men and bade him keep

an eye on me, that is, he very simply pointed to me with his finger,

and from that minute the detective was continually beside me. I cannot

express my gratitude for this official care. If I went away for a quarter

of an hour, while the judges were having lunch, to get a glass of ale at

a tavern, and could not find a seat on my return, the detective nodded

to me and indicated where to sit. If another policeman stopped me in the

doorway, my man made a sign to him, and the policeman let me in. On one

occasion, I put my hat down in the window, forgot about it, and by the

crush of the crowd was completely cut off from it. When I grasped the

situation, there was no possibility of getting to it; I stood up to see

if I could creep through anywhere, but my detective reassured me: ‘I

expect you are looking for your hat; I have taken care of it.’

After that, it is easy to understand why his comrade regaled me with some

reddish Scotch Cavendish.

My agreeable acquaintance with the detective served me well later on

also. One day, after buying some books at Trübner’s, I got into an

omnibus and forgot them there; as I was walking off, I recollected them,

but the omnibus had driven away. I set off to the City to inquire at the

omnibus station; my detective turned up and greeted me. ‘Delighted to see

you,’ I said; ‘perhaps you can tell me how I can get back my books.’

‘What was the name of the omnibus?’

‘So-and-so.’

‘At what time was it?’

‘Just now.’

‘That is easy, then; come along,’ and a quarter of an hour later the

books were in my hands.

Fitzroy Kelly delivered his speech for the prosecution, dry, _cassant_,

with a mixture of venom in it. Campbell summed up the evidence, and the

jury retired.

I went up to the lawyer’s bench and asked a solicitor of my acquaintance

how he thought things were going.

‘Not well,’ he said; ‘I am almost certain the jury will give a verdict

against him.’

‘That is bad. And is it possible he will be...?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ the solicitor interrupted me, ‘but he will be

deported. It will all depend on the judges.’

There was a terrible noise, laughter, conversation, coughing in the

court. An alderman took off his gold chain and showed it to some ladies;

the solid chain passed from hand to hand. ‘Surely somebody will steal

it,’ I thought. Two hours later a bell rang, Campbell came in again

and then Pollock, a thin, decrepit old man, who had once been Queen

Charlotte’s lawyer, and two other judges. The usher announced to them

that the jury were agreed. ‘Bring in the jury,’ said Campbell.

A deathly stillness reigned. I looked round; people’s faces changed,

looked paler, graver, eyes glowed, ladies shuddered. In this stillness,

in the presence of this crowd, the accustomed ritual of questions,

of taking the oath, was extraordinarily impressive. With his arms

folded, Bernard stood calmly, a little paler than usual (his deportment

throughout the trial had been excellent).

In a quiet but distinct voice Campbell asked: ‘Are the jury agreed, have

they chosen one of their number as foreman, and who is he?’

They had chosen as foreman a city tailor of no great wealth.

When he had taken the oath and Campbell, rising to his feet, told him

that the court was awaiting the verdict of the jury, I held my breath, my

heart stood still.

‘... Before God and the prisoner in the dock, we declare that Dr. Simon

Bernard, accused of being an accomplice in the attempt of the 12th of

January to assassinate Napoleon, and of murder’—he raised his voice and

added loudly—‘Not guilty!’

A few seconds of silence, then a sigh of relief seemed to run through

the crowd and was followed by frantic shouts, a thunder of applause, an

outburst of joy ... ladies waved their handkerchiefs, lawyers jumped on

to their benches, men with flushed faces and tears streaming down their

cheeks shouted frantically ‘Hurray, hurray!’ Two minutes passed, the

judges, displeased at this lack of respect, told the ushers to restore

silence; two or three pitiful figures waved their staves and moved their

lips, but the noise did not cease nor grow less. Campbell went out, and

his colleagues went out, no one paid attention to that, the shouting and

hubbub continued. The jury were triumphant.

I went up to the dock, congratulated Bernard and would have pressed his

hand, but, though he stretched down and I stretched up, I could not reach

his hand. All at once two lawyers, strangers to me, wearing their gowns

and wigs, said to me, ‘Stay—wait a minute,’ and before I could answer,

they seized me and shoved me up so that I could reach his hand.

As soon as the shouts began to subside, it was as though a sea were

beating upon the walls and bursting with a hollow splash in at all the

doors and windows of the building; this was the shouting on the stairs

and in the outer hall. It retreated and approached again, spread wider

and wider and melted at last into a roar: it was the voice of the people.

Campbell came in and announced that Bernard was acquitted by the court on

this charge, then he went out again with his ‘brother judges’; I, too,

went out. It was one of those rare moments when a man looks at the crowd

with love, when he feels at ease with his fellows.... Many of England’s

sins will be forgiven her for that verdict and the delight with which it

was received.

I went out, the street was crowded with people.

A coal-heaver came out of a side-street, looked at the crowd and asked:

‘Is it all over?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the verdict?’

‘Not guilty.’

The coalman laid down the reins, took off his leather cap with its huge

flap at the back, threw it up in the air and began shouting in a terrific

voice, ‘Hurray, hurray!’ and the crowd began shouting ‘Hurray!’ again.

At that moment, the jurymen came out of the doors of the Old Bailey,

escorted by the police. The crowd greeted them by taking off their hats

and uttering endless shouts of approval. The police had no need to clear

a way for them. The people parted of their own accord—the jurymen went to

a tavern in Fleet Street, the crowd following them; as fresh crowds came

up, they shouted ‘Hurray!’ to them and flung their hats in the air.

This was between five and six. At seven o’clock, in Manchester,

Newcastle, Liverpool and other towns, the workmen rushed about the

streets with torches announcing Bernard’s acquittal. The news was

telegraphed to them by their friends; crowds had been waiting at the

telegraph offices since four o’clock.

So England celebrated a fresh triumph of her freedom!

After Palmerston’s defeat over the Conspiracy Bill and the failure of

Derby’s followers in the Bernard case, the proceedings taken by the

Government against the two pamphlets became impossible. If Bernard had

been found guilty, hanged or sent to twenty years’ penal servitude, and

public opinion had remained unmoved, then it would have been easy to

complete the sacrifice with two or three Isaacs in the publishing trade.

The French agents had already pounced upon other pamphlets, including

Mazzini’s letter.

But Bernard had been acquitted, and that was not all. The ovation

received by the jury, the enthusiastic uproar in the Old Bailey, the

delight all over England, did not promise success. The case of the

pamphlets was transferred to the Queen’s Bench.

This was their last effort to secure the conviction of the accused. The

jury at the Old Bailey could not, it seemed, be relied upon; city men,

who firmly maintained their rights and were from tradition somewhat in

opposition, did not inspire confidence; while the jury of the Queen’s

Bench came from the West End and were mostly wealthy tradesmen, who

firmly upheld the religion of order and the tradition of profit, but even

this jury could hardly be reckoned on after the tailor’s verdict.

Moreover, every newspaper in London and throughout the kingdom, with the

exception of a few sheets, obviously in the pay of the Government, rose

without distinction of party against the assault on the freedom of the

press. Meetings were called, committees were formed, subscriptions were

got up to pay fines and legal expenses, in case the Government should

succeed in and petition the conviction of the publishers; addresses

securings were signed.

The position was growing more difficult and more absurd every day. France

in full trousers, _couleur garance_, with a _képi_ a little on one side,

was gazing across the Channel with a sinister air, waiting for the end

of the proceedings taken in defence of her master. Bernard’s release

had deeply offended her, and she had drawn her sabre from its sheath,

swearing like a corporal.

‘The heavy heart grew heavier

Beneath its weight of care....’[74]

The capitalists, pale as their own silver, looked to the Government; the

Government like a mirror reflected their panic. But all this was nothing

to Campbell and the judicial powers not of this world. They recognised

one thing, that proceedings against the freedom of the press were opposed

to the spirit of the whole nation, and that a severe sentence would

deprive them of all popularity and provoke a fierce protest. The only

course left them would be to pass a trivial sentence, a farthing damages

or one day’s imprisonment.... While France with her _képi_ on one side

would take such a sentence as a personal insult.

It would be worse still if the jury acquitted Truelove and Tchorszewski,

then the whole blame would fall on the Government for not having ordered

the _Préfet de Londres_, or the Lord Mayor, to select the jury from the

_Service de sûreté_ or at least from the _friends of order_ ... and after

that ‘_Tambourgi, tambourgi, they ’larum afar!_’

The Ministers of the Queen and her lawyers thoroughly grasped this

awkward position and, perhaps, they would have done something, if it

were possible in England to perform what the English call a ‘coop detty’

and the French a ‘_coup d’état_,’ while, moreover, the example of the

resourceful, indefatigable, elusive, youthful old Palmerston was so

fresh....

‘Oh Lord, what a task it is

To be the ruler of a grown-up nation!’[75]

The day of the trial arrived. The evening before, our B. went off to the

Queen’s Bench and gave a policeman five shillings to let him in next

day. B. laughed and rubbed his hands; he was persuaded that we should be

unable to get seats, or should be stopped at the door. He forgot that

there is as fact no door to the Queen’s Bench Court, but only a big

archway. I arrived an hour before Campbell; there were not very many

people and I got an excellent seat. Twenty minutes later I saw B. enter,

looking in all directions, hunting about and apparently uneasy. ‘What do

you want?’

‘I am looking for my policeman.’

‘What do you want him for?’

‘Why, he promised to keep a seat for me.’

‘Upon my soul, why, there are a hundred seats at your service.’

‘The policeman has cheated me,’ said B. laughing.

‘How has he cheated you? Why, you have got a place.’

The policeman of course did not show himself.

An eager conversation was going on between Tchorszewski and Truelove.

Their solicitors were taking part in it too; at last, Tchorszewski turned

to me and said, handing me a letter: ‘What do you think of this letter?’

The letter was from Truelove to his lawyer; in it he complained of having

been arrested and said that, though he had printed the pamphlet, he had

no intention of publishing such books; the letter was signed. Truelove

was standing close by.

It was not for me to advise Truelove. I got out of it with some

meaningless phrase, but Tchorszewski said: ‘They want me to sign a letter

like that; I won’t do that. I’d rather go to prison than sign a letter

like that.’

‘Silence,’ cried the usher. Lord Campbell appeared. When all the

formalities were completed and the jury had taken the oath, Fitzroy

Kelly got up and informed Campbell that he had a communication from the

Government. ‘The Government,’ he said, ‘in view of Truelove’s letter, in

which he undertakes this and that, and, taking into consideration this

and that, abandons the prosecution.’

Campbell turning to the jury said to this: ‘That the guilt of the

publisher of the pamphlet on tyrannicide is unquestioned, that the

English law, while allowing every possible freedom of the press,

nevertheless provides measures for punishing a provocation to so

terrible a crime, and soon. But since the Government, owing to certain

considerations, abandons the prosecution, he is ready, if the jury

consent, to cut short the proceedings; if, however, they do not choose

that this should be done, he will continue the trial.’

The jurymen wanted their lunch and wanted to go about their business,

and so, without leaving the box, they turned their backs and, after

consulting together, answered, as might have been expected, that they

agreed that the proceedings should be stopped.

Campbell informed Truelove that he was at liberty to leave the court.

There was no applause at this, nothing but laughter.

An _entr’acte_ followed at this moment. B. remembered that he had not had

his morning tea, and went off to a neighbouring tavern. I note this trait

especially because it is typically Russian. The Englishman eats a great

deal of rich food, the German eats a great deal of inferior food, the

Frenchman eats little but with enthusiasm; the Englishman drinks beer and

everything else heavily, the German drinks beer, too, and beer instead

of anything else; but neither Englishman, Frenchman nor German is so

completely dependent on the habits of his stomach as the Russian. He is

bound hand and foot by them. To miss his dinner ... impossible ... better

arrive a day late, better not see some one at all. B. paid for his tea,

besides his two shillings, with the following superb scene.

When Tchorszewski’s turn came Fitzroy Kelly rose, and again announced

that he had a communication from the Government. I strained my ears; what

cause could he have invented? Tchorszewski had written no letter.

‘Though the accused,’ began Fitzroy Kelly, ‘Stanislas Trou ... Torf

... Tush ...’ and he stopped, adding: ‘This is impossible! The foreign

gentleman at the bar is certainly guilty of the publication and sale of

Felix Pyat’s pamphlet, yet the Government, taking into consideration that

he is a foreigner and ignorant of the English law, and that this is his

first offence, abandons the prosecution.’

And the same farce was repeated. Campbell asked the jurymen. The jury

instantly acquitted Tchorszewski.

On this occasion, too, the French were displeased. They wanted a grand

_mise en scène_, they wanted to thunder against tyrants and champion

_la cause des peuples_ ... possibly Truelove and Tchorszewski would

incidentally have been fined or condemned to prison; but what does

prison, ten years of prison, signify ... beside the opportunity of

repeating in the face of all people the great principles that outlaw

tyrants and their Zaids[76] ... the everlasting principles of 1789 on

which the freedom of France stands so firmly ... in exile!

The Government, frightened by its neighbour, had for the second time

struck upon the granite rock of English freedom, and had meekly given

way; could there have been a greater triumph for the freedom of the press?