Her un Tuileries, the cathedrals, and the palaces of her ancestors! fortunate brother, the Dauphin, was now rapidly dying; but the young princess was not permitted to attend upon, or even to see him. She only learned from his gaolers the progress of the disease which was consuming this poor child, and from whom she was only separated by a partition." The murder of the Duc d'Enghien has been often told, but seldom with more truth and pathos than by M. Lamartine. Our readers will willingly turn to it once more. "Harel and Aufort preceded the duke in silence down the steps of the narrow winding staircase, which descended to a postern through the massy walls of this tower. The prince, with an instinctive horror of the place, and of the depth beneath the soil to which the steps were leading him, began to think they were not conducting him before the judges, but into the hands of murderers, or to the gloom of a dungeon. He trembled in all his limbs, and convulsively drew back his foot, as he addressed his guides in front-Where are you conducting me?' he demanded with a stifled voice. If it is to bury me alive in a dungeon, I would rather die this instant.' up "Sir,' replied Harel, turning round, 'follow me, and summon all your courage.' "The prince partly comprehended him, and followed. "They at length issued from the winding staircase through a low postern, which opened on the bottom of the moat, and continued walking for some time in the dark, along the foot of the lofty walls of the fortress, as far as the basement of the Queen's Pavilion. When they had turned the angle of this pavilion, which had concealed another part of the moat behind its walls, the prince suddenly found himself in front of the detachment of troops drawn up to witness his death. The firing party selected for the execution was separated from the rest; and the barrels of their muskets, reflecting the dull light of some lanterns carried by a few of the attendants, threw a sinister glare on the moat, the massy walls, and the newly-dug grave. The prince stopped, at a sign from his guides, within a few paces of the firing party. He saw his fate at a glance; but he neither trembled nor turned pale. A slight and chilling rain was falling from a gloomy sky, and a melancholy silence reigned throughout the moat. Nothing disturbed the horror of the scene but the whispering and shuffling feet of a few groups of officers and soldiers who had collected upon the parapets above, and on the drawbridge which led into the forest of Vincennes. 66 'Adjutant Pellé, who commanded the detachment, advanced with his eyes lowered towards the prince. He held in his hand the sentence of the military commission, which he read in a low dull voice, but perfectly intelligible. The prince listened, without making an observation or losing his firmness. He seemed to have collected in an instant all his courage, and all the military heroism of his race, to shew his enemies that he knew how to die. Two feelings alone seemed to occupy him during the moment of intense silence which followed the reading of his sentence; one was to invoke the aid of religion to soothe his last struggle, and the other to communicate his dying thoughts to her he was going to leave desolate on the earth. "He accordingly asked if he could have the assistance of a priest, but there was none in the castle; and though a few minutes would suffice to call the curé of Vincennes, they were too much pressed for time, and too anxious to avail themselves of the night, which was to cover every thing. The officers nearest to him made a sign that he must renounce this consolation; and one brutal fellow, from the midst of a group, called out, in a tone of irony, 'Do you wish, then, to die like a Capuchin?' "The prince raised his head with an air of indignation, and turning towards the group of officers and gendarmes who had accompanied him to the ground, he asked in a loud voice, if there was any one amongst them willing to do him one last service. Lieutenant Noirot advanced from the group and approached him, thus sufficiently evincing his intention. The prince said a few words to him in a low voice; and Noirot, turning towards the side occupied by the troops, said, 'Gentlemen, have any of you got a pair of scissors about you?' The gendarmes searched their cartridge-boxes, and a pair of scissors was passed from hand to hand to the prince. He took off his cap, cut off one of the locks of his hair, drew a letter from his pocket and a ring from his finger; then folding the hair, the letter, and the ring in a sheet of paper, he gave the little packet, his sole inheritance, to Lieutenant Noirot, charging him, in the name of pity for his situation and his death, to send them to the young Princess Charlotte de Rohan, at Ettenheim. "This love-message being thus confided, he collected himself for a moment, with his hands joined, to offer up a last prayer, and in a low voice recommended his soul to God. He then made five or six paces to place himself in front of the firing party, whose loaded muskets he saw glimmering at a short distance. The light of a large lantern, containing several candles, placed upon the little wall that stood over the open grave, gleamed full upon him, and lighted the aim of the soldiers. The firing party retired a few paces to a proper distance, the adjutant gave the word to fire, and the young prince, as if struck by a thunderbolt, fell upon the earth without a cry and without a struggle. At that moment the clock of the castle struck the hour of three. "Hullin and his colleagues were waiting in the vestibule of Harel's quarters for their carriage to convey them back to Paris, and were talking with some bitterness of Savary's refusal to transmit their letter to his master, when an unexpected explosion, resounding from the moat of the forest-gate, made them start and tremble, and taught them that judges should never reckon upon anything but justice and their own conscience. This still small voice pursued them through their lives. The Duke d'Enghien was no more. "His dog, which had followed him into the moat, yelled when he It was saw him fall, and threw himself on the body of his master. with difficulty the poor animal could be torn away from the spot and given to one of the prince's servants, who took him to the Princess Charlotte, the only messenger from that tomb where slept the hapless victim whom she never ceased to deplore." PROTESTANT JUSTICE AND ROYAL CLEMENCY. Statement of Facts relative to the Case of Mr. William Weale, Master of the Poor-School at Islington. Richardsons. THERE exists a popular delusion to the effect that Protestantism, which, arrayed in a plain hat, coat, and trousers, is the deadly foe and unscrupulous assailant of Catholics, becomes the very type of all that is just, honourable, candid, and Christian, when seated on the bench of a police-office. This delusion extends even to the "gentlemen of the jury.' We find ourselves imagining that a dozen country squires or London shopkeepers, who in their dining-rooms or backparlours can scarcely restrain their tongues within the bounds of decency at the mention of the Catholic Church, are transformed into the beau-ideal of good sense, good humour, and truthfulness, so soon as the door of the jury-room is locked upon them, and they put their heads together to find a bill, or agree on a verdict, in a case in which a Catholic is the defendant. Alas for our simplicity! Is the Lord Lieutenant's commission to the "Great Unpaid" the outward sign of a sacrament regenerating the soul? Is the hot air of an assize-court a species of purgatorial fire, cleansing away the abominable passions of the human heart? Fellow-Catholics, believe it not. Human nature is human nature still, even when invested with the awful prerogatives of justice. Power is the last thing to tame the unbridled longings of our foes. If they will strike us in their private, they will strike us with double force in their judicial capacity. Justices and juries in England, in the year 1852, are the legitimate descendants of the men who for 300 years have judicially murdered us, imprisoned us, given us over to stripes, to fines, to confiscations, and to torture. Is human nature literally regenerate in the nineteenth century? Is the world become the friend of God? What has occurred to render the indescribable enormities perpetrated for three centuries against us, in the sacred names of law and justice, and with the most solemn cant of hypocritical perjury, now no longer probable or possible? Doubtless here and there we meet with a just magistrate, or, still more marvellous, an unbiassed jury. The wife of Pontius Pilate himself protested against the murder of our blessed Lord; a murder, be it remembered, accompanied with all the forms and professions of rigorous justice. All Protestants are not the children of Pilate and Jeffreys. But such men are rare, and we cannot count upon their aid. We must lay our account upon being made to suffer in every possible case in which the iniquity of our enemies can contrive to bring us within the grasp of pretended law and justice. If we want an example of what we may all of us look for at the hands of jury, witnesses, counsel, home-secretary, and even royalty itself, let us ponder well what has happened to Mr. William Weale, a gentleman who but six months ago filled a government situation, conferred on him when a Protestant, but who has been so foolish as to exchange Protestantism for Catholicism, and to consider that it is better to serve God by teaching and ministering to the poor, himself becoming a poor man, than to enjoy the advantages and comforts of his natural station in life, and which he might have enjoyed without one stain of sin. About the 8th of last July he entered on his duties as master of the Islington Catholic Poor-School, under the direction of Mr. Oakeley, the senior priest of the mission, for some time previously having devoted three evenings in every week to the religious and moral instruction of poor adults in the same district. Three weeks afterwards he corrected an extremely ill-conditioned little boy for thieving and lying, with no extreme severity whatever. A conspiracy, however, was instantly got up by some Protestants, against the wishes of the boy's parents. Mr. Weale was brought before the police-magistrate; on his trial, Mr. Clarkson, the barrister retained to defend him, made no defence whatever, not even calling the witnesses summoned for the defence; and Mr. Weale was summarily treated as a scoundrel, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the House of Correction. If ever there was an innocent man victimised by malice and the incredible conduct of the person who had undertaken his defence, Mr. Weale is such a one. The entire facts of the case are then forwarded to Sir George Grey, the Home-Secretary, with a prayer that the Queen will remit the iniquitous sentence. The memorial remains unanswered for nearly a month, and the petition is then refused in a printed circular! Such is Protestant justice and royal clemency towards us. Mr. Oakeley has of course published a statement of the whole affair, which is now before us. We make the following extracts from his letter to Sir G. Grey, to shew what chance a Catholic has from his fellow-countrymen. About the 8th of last July, as we have said, Mr. Weale undertook the care of the Islington Poor-School. Three weeks afterwards the boy John Farrell was whipped by him. "Yet it was produced in evidence, as if bearing upon Mr. Weale's case, that cries had been heard from the school for eight or nine months before the assault; and this allegation (whether true or not is not here in question) was brought forward by the counsel for the prosecution between the verdict and the sentence, as if with a view to aggravate the penalty." Mr. Oakeley then continues: "For the instruction of the Catholic poor, Mr. Weale's energy of character, kindness of disposition, great natural talents, extensive information, and acquaintance with the habits of the poor, especially fit him. To myself and my colleague in this church and mission he was further recommended by his services as a lay visitor in our parochial district; in which capacity he had not merely gained the confidence of our people, but had been frequently instrumental in reconciling differences among the Irish poor which threatened the peace of the neighbourhood, so as to have received on one occasion the thanks of the magistrate on the bench, and repeatedly those of the local police. "With these most favourable antecedents, he became master of the Poor Day-school here, as already stated, about the 8th of last July. It was on the 21st of that month that he was given over to the police by the witness Hinchley, on a charge of assaulting the boy John Farrell. "When Mr. Weale informed me that he was about to be marched off to the police-office, I looked upon the matter as a mere triflethe effect of an extensive popular feeling against Catholics, which unhappily prevails in this neighbourhood. Nor did this impression wear off when I found that he was to re-appear next day, to obtain the evidence of the father of the boy, who I supposed would refuse, as the mother had already done, to join in the prosecution. Though I knew neither of the parents even by name, I was aware of the well-grounded confidence which the parents generally reposed in Mr. Weale's management of their children. The case, however, did not end there; for Mr. Weale was bound over, on his own recognisances, to appear at the sessions and answer to any charge which might be made against him. I soon became aware that influences were at work to induce the parents to prosecute, though none whatever were used on Mr. Weale's side; but I was also told that the parents were firm in their resolution. Other circumstances combined to make me think little of the matter. No report of the police case |