coming but his own statement. No mark was discovered on his countenance which could testify to such a blow; and the tightly kidgloved-hand on the corpse of M. Noir, was afterwards pointed to in disproof of any such violent action. A sword-stick found in the Prince's apartment was claimed by Fonvielle as his property, not his friend's; and the known desperate character of the Prince was alleged as a reason for going to his house thus armed. As soon as the affair became known in Paris, M. Ollivier, as Minister of Justice, ordered the arrest of Prince Pierre Bonaparte, who immediately surrendered.

He was conveyed to the prison of the Conciergerie, where his family and friends were allowed access to him. The Emperor, who heard the tidings, on the fatal Monday, on his way home from a day's shooting at Rambouillet, signed at once a decree, convening the High Court of Justice appointed by the Imperial Constitution, for the trial of any member of the imperial family accused of a criminal offence.

A most violent article came out in the Marseillaise of the next day. It was printed in very large type, enclosed in a black border, and without a line of other news. It was read with eagerness and numerous copies were posted on the walls of Paris. Prefixed to M. Fonvielle's narrative of the transaction were a dozen lines of introduction by M. Rochefort, in which he said "he was weak enough to have imagined that a Bonaparte could be any thing else than a murderer, and had ventured to think a loyal duel possible in that family where murder and ambush are traditional and customary. Here are eighteen years," he said, "that France has been in the blood-stained hands of these cut-throats, who, not satisfied with mowing down the Republicans with grapeshot in the streets, entice them into filthy snares, to kill them within four stone walls. Frenchmen! can it be that you do not think you have had enough of them?"

The same day, ascending the tribune in the Corps Législatif, Rochefort called the attention of the Chamber to this murder of "a child of the people," as he styled Victor Noir; and demanded whether, as the murderer was a member of the imperial family, there was any intention of obstructing the course of justice. "The people demanded an ordinary jury," he said, "judges devoted to the reigning family should not be appointed. In presence of the crime just committed, one knows not whether the country is governed by a Bonaparte or a Borgia!"

On the Wednesday the Marseillaise was as violent as before, and the issues of both days were seized; and ministers resolved to prosecute M. Rochefort for the inflammatory address which he had prefixed to Fonvielle's narrative on the Tuesday. But first it was requisite to gain the sanction of the Corps Legislatif. A day or two after, therefore, a motion for the purpose was brought forward, and a debate ensued.

A contrary motion by M. Estancelin, a deputy of the Left Centre,

called forth an able speech from M. Ollivier, and a majority of 192 votes was recorded for the minister, the number being 226 against 34. MM. Jules Simon, Ferry, Pinard, and Arago, voted with the opposition.

The funeral of Victor Noir took place on the Wednesday afternoon, in the cemetery at Neuilly. A disturbance was expected, and the garrison of Paris, reinforced by troops from Versailles, Vincennes, and elsewhere, was placed under arms, detachments being posted at the Palais Bourbon to defend the Corps Législatif, at the Champs Elysées, &c. The Minister of War took up his quarters at the Palais de l'Industrie, where troops and munitions were collected. M. Rochefort set out towards the cemetery, but turned faint, and stopped half way. Nearly 100,000 people collected to show their sympathy for the deceased. The horses were taken from the hearse, which was drawn by six men to the place of interment, but no speeches were made. The crowd in returning, met the voiture of M. Rochefort, who turned with them, intending apparently to lead them through the Champs Elysées and the Place de la Concorde, to the Palais of the Corps Législatif. But while descending the Champs Elysées, singing the Marseillaise and cheering Rochefort, they were confronted by a Commissary of Police and by troops of Chasseurs and Guides, and dispersed peaceably on the roll of the drum.

On Saturday, the 22nd, M. Rochefort made default before the tribunal of Correctional Police, on hearing of the proceedings against him. The Advocate Imperial demanded that the lightest possible sentence should be passed consistent with due respect for the maintenance of the law. The court awarded six months' imprisonment, together with a fine of 3000 francs, and without the interdiction of civil rights. M. Rochefort thus retained his seat as deputy; and he had time given him to appeal even against this light sentence; which moreover, if confirmed, would probably not have been carried out, in view of certain contemplated alterations in the law relating to press offences. But M. Rochefort let the time for appeal pass by. He paid his fine, but omitted to surrender himself prisoner. On the 7th of February he published an article in the Marseillaise. "I had read indeed," he said, "in certain journals that several old men in black petticoats had mumbled among themselves some words concerning me; but occupied as I was I had no time to think of such puerilities. To-day I received a letter from a law functionary.

Through this medium M. Emile Ollivier invites me to constitute myself prisoner. I decline, however, to attend the Rendezvous de chasse at eleven o'clock precisely, which you give me in your palace of Sainte Pélagie." The same day the contumacious member appeared in his place in the Corps Législatif, when M. Crémieux addressed an interpellation to the Minister of Justice, saying that the arrest of a deputy in consequence of the sentence of a law tribunal, could not take place without a special sanction of the Corps Législatif, in addition to the sanction given before any pro

K

ceedings before a law tribunal could take place. M. Gambetta argued not against the legality, but against the policy, of the measures intended against M. Rochefort. But though the members of the Left were strong in their opposition, M. Ollivier spoke firmly, and a violent scene outside the Palais de Bourbon was fully expected, when at the last moment the Ministers gave way, and decided that the arrest should be postponed to a better opportunity. M. Rochefort, with his friends, drove off triumphantly amid the cheers of the people. That evening, however, he was entering the Salle Marseillaise, in the Rue de Flandres, at La Villette, for the purpose of presiding over a political meeting, when a body of police seized him, hurried him off to the cab that was in waiting near the policestation, and conveyed him to the prison of Ste. Pélagie. The Assembly congregated in the Salle Marseillaise became furiously excited. M. Gustave Flourens, a writer on the staff of the journal, flourished a naked sword-stick and pointed his revolver at the head of the Commissary of Police, who was attending the meeting: then delivering the Commissary and his two secretaries to the charge of a hundred of his partisans, he declared the Republic en permanence, and marched out into the streets at their head. "Vive Rochefort," "A bas les Bonapartes," were cries which now rose from the gathering mob. At the end of the Faubourg du Temple Flourens and his friends constructed a barricade by overturning a couple of omnibuses and several cabs. In the confusion the Police Commissary and his secretaries escaped. The gas lamps were extinguished, more barricades were constructed, and in some streets the rioters held their ground till half-past one o'clock. Entering a gunsmith's shop in the Rue Lafayette, a part of them carried off 150 revolvers and some thousands of cartridges. But by degrees the advancing Sergens de Ville and Gardes de Paris broke up this mob, and before morning the barricades were removed, and peace restored. The next night there was rioting again; more extinguishing of gas lights and forming of barricades, this time in the Rue de St. Maur and near the Canal St. Martin. The Sergens de Ville and Gardes de Paris charged the mob, who took to flight at once, leaving some wounded and some in the hands of the police. Another band of rioters gathered on the Boulevard Montmartre, singing the Marseillaise and shouting, but they, too, dispersed on the arrival of the Sergens de Ville. Once more, on the Wednesday night, attempts were made to throw up barricades at the Faubourg du Temple and at Belleville, but they were frustrated partly by the police and partly by the inhabitants themselves; and with this demonstration the Rochefort riots came to an end. A few lives had been lost during their progress. After their suppression a great many arrests were made, and an uneasy feeling was excited among the people by the rumours that got about of conspiracies detected against the Government and against the life of the Emperor,-rumours which gained all the more force because the examinations were conducted in private, and the official journal observed its customary reticence. So numerous were the

persons apprehended that the prison of the Conciergerie became literally crammed. All the writers in the Marseillaise, save Gustave Flourens, who escaped to Brussels, and some of the writers in the Reveil, were seized and sent to Mazas. Ulric de Fonvielle alone was released on account of his position as chief witness in the impending trial of Pierre Bonaparte.

No formidable amount of arms was found on the actual rioters of Belleville: twenty revolvers, two guns, and five pistols, 170 cartridges, and about fifty daggers, knives, and swordsticks were seized; but it was given out that in the arrests subsequently made, more formidable preparations had been discovered. However, as the successive batches of prisoners received sentence or acquittal during the weeks that succeeded the riot, no confirmation of the supposed plot transpired. The severest sentences passed were those on the journalists. A fine of 2000 francs and thirteen months' imprisonment was assigned to the editor of the Reveil, for justifying the act of a working man in shooting one of the police officers on duty; fines of 1000 francs and 2000 francs to writers in the Marseillaise, for justifying a citizen in refusing to pay taxes. Fines, also, were imposed on editors of Republican journals for refusing to deposit copies of their papers at the office of the Ministry of the Interior.

The Commercial Treaty concluded with England in 1860 had for some time past been a subject of severe reprehension with the Protectionist party, in view of the nearly approaching period when its renewal or non-renewal was to be decided upon in accordance with the original terms of the engagement. On the interpellation of M. Jules Brame, a discussion on this subject was announced in the Corps Législatif during the last week in January.

Objection was taken, by its opponents, to the mode in which the Treaty had been concluded. It was made on the sole authority of the Emperor himself, empowered, as he then was, by a Senatus Consultum of 1852, to make Treaties of Commerce on his individual responsibility. It was a commercial coup d'état, said the petitioners on the Protectionist side-it was unfairly taken out of the hands of those most nearly interested in the matter. The Ministers maintained that whatever the rights of the Chamber under the new Constitution, they could not nullify the power which the Emperor possessed at the time the Treaty was made.

M. Jules Simon, a Free-trader on the Left side of the Chamber, proved that in 1866 the imports into France taken for consumption, and the exports of French productions, amounted to 5974 millions of francs, as against 3903 millions in 1859. Some branches of industry, he admitted, were in a suffering state, though not on account of the existing treaties; but on the whole he asserted that Free Trade, as far as it was yet recognized in France, had greatly improved the condition of the country, "And, to put its advantages in another light, commercial liberty," he said, "is an indispensable condition of peace; for so long as we continue to have

an army of revenue officers on the frontier, the fraternity of nations will be impossible. But when peoples shall only be rival traders instead of enemies, I defy you to make them fight. By freedom of labour and commerce, will be founded the future of liberty, and all war will be at an end."

The principal speaker on the side of protection was M. Thiers, who talked of " re-establishing prosperity where it no longer prevailed," of "sustaining the national labour of the country, by giving birth to that labour where it does not exist, but especially by keeping it alive where it does exist." He maintained that a system of Free Trade ought not to be the law of the world. "French manufacturers," he said, "are not able to cope with those of England or of Switzerland. The former country possesses an abundance of raw material, an immense market, more machinery, and cheaper coal, and, finally, a great superiority of production, as it works thirtyfour millions of spindles against the six millions of France, and manufactures 3,000,000 bales of cotton against 700,000, the entire French number. Switzerland again possesses all the year round hydraulic power, which France can only rely upon in winter, using steam at other times, a more expensive agent; in addition to which the taxation in the one country is at the rate of 15f. per head, and in the other between 60f. and 70f." M. Thiers then proceeded to point out that the chintz-printers of Alsace have taken to printing cheap cottons imported from England or Switzerland instead of French goods, and have thereby sacrificed Rouen, which had already to struggle with England. The consequence was that one-fourth of the spinning factories, one-third of the weaving establishments, and three-fourths of the engineers' shops had been closed. "The same arguments and facts," he said, "apply to the linen and woollen manufactures. The duties are not only insufficient, but they are not fully levied, from the absolute impossibility of examining every piece of imported goods. Out of 500 establishments in Poitou, Brittany, Normandy, &c., for the preparation of charcoal iron, no less than 353 have perished. The result has been that the manufacture destroyed in France has developed itself in foreign countries, and charcoal iron has to be imported from Sweden." M. Thiers then maintained that agriculture had likewise suffered; that the race of French sheep promised to disappear, and that France imported 180,000,000 lbs. of wool against the 70,000,000 lbs. she produced herself. "With respect to corn," he said, "she is unable to compete with eastern Europe. French shipping, too, is in a state of extreme peril, for the laws of 1866 dealt it a death-blow. The trade with England has increased, it is true, but by the ruin of native merchant shipping. England, finding the markets of the United States closed to her, and those of her colonies protected against her, has inundated France with her productions. French workmanship is the perfection of skill, but it is not cheap. Why, then, attempt to rival England in low prices? Her aim is cheapness; the aim of France, excellence. The position of France is still