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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 182.: FRENCH NEWS [70] EXAMINER, 28 OCT., 1832, P. 696 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

182.: FRENCH NEWS [70] EXAMINER, 28 OCT., 1832, P. 696 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


182.

FRENCH NEWS [70]

EXAMINER, 28 OCT., 1832, P. 696

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 181. The item, headed “London, October 28, 1832,” is listed as “Article on France” and enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set of the Examiner.

in reading the trial of M. Berryer, we almost doubt whether the scenes that are unfolded took place in a civilized country.1 The papers of the accused falsified in order to manufacture evidence against him; the chief witness for the prosecution, indeed the only one who testified to anything, a man calling himself a Lieutenant-Colonel, so manifestly perjured that the avocat général was obliged to throw up the accusation;2 the procureur du roi at Nantes convicted by his own admission of having sent up to his official superiors a pretended confession of M. Berryer, on which three other persons were seized and thrown into prison,3 when in truth he had never seen M. Berryer, nor had M. Berryer made any disclosure to any one; this same procureur du roi now saying, by way of excuse, that if it was not M. Berryer who made the disclosures to him, it was another person;4 the avowed author of this manifest forgery not instantly dismissed from his situation, but called to Paris, as the Moniteur phrases it,5 to explain his conduct; then the reflection that on such evidence a Deputy was to have been tried by a Court-Martial, if the decree of the Court of Cassation had not averted the dire infliction6 —altogether the picture of the French government and of the administration of justice and the state of public morality in France, is such as it is frightful to witness.

Another incident not unworthy of notice has recently happened. M. Audry de Puyraveau is one of the most steady and incorruptible members of the côtégauche, and one of the most esteemed private characters in France.7 He was one of the very small number of Deputies who gave active aid in the resistance to the Ordinances of Charles X; and, like so many other persons, he has been rewarded by the ruin of his private fortunes; for the greater part of his property was embarked in a roulage speculation; his fixed capital of carts and waggons was mostly taken to make barricades of, and rendered useless; he participated, too, in the losses occasioned by the subsequent commercial distress. His remaining property, consisting of three landed estates, being mortgaged for more than it would now sell for, M. Audry determined to dispose of it by lottery, as the only means of making the proceeds suffice to clear off the entire debt. Now there is a law, passed in the time of the French Republic, by which private lotteries are illegal.8 That law has never been deemed applicable to lotteries of this description. M. de Chateaubriand a few years ago was permitted to take this particular mode of selling an estate; and a lottery took place not many months since, for the benefit of the Poles. No matter: an Opposition Deputy had brought himself within the letter of the law; the Government pounced upon him, and not content with annulling the transaction, obtained from the Court of First Instance a judgment condemning M. Audry to fine, imprisonment, and the confiscation of the three landed estates! M. Audry appealed to a higher court, which set aside the confiscation as contrary to the charter, but confirmed the remainder of the judgment, and imposed a much larger fine upon M. Audry. There is another court of appeal still in reserve, and to this M. Audry has had recourse. We have here a specimen of the Citizen King: for the King it is, and not the Minister, who is the author of this, as well as of the persecution of the Press, and all the other odious proceedings of the Government. His Ministers are only the base instruments of his individual will.

The late préfet of Grenoble, M. Maurice Duval, who charged the unarmed people from both ends of a street at once, so that they had no escape, and were forced to remain and be butchered—a man whose conduct even Casimir Périer condemned in private, though he had the dishonesty to defend it in public—this man has been made a peer of France, and promoted to be préfet of Nantes.9 That hitherto peaceful city, in which the best understanding existed between the people and the former préfet,10 would not brook this insolent appointment. On the day of M. Duval’s arrival, he underwent a charivari of four hours; this was repeated the next day on a still grander scale, until the troops were called out, and the people dispersed.11

M. Guizot once said in a speech in the Chamber, that, in a well-constituted government, a good minister must expect to be unpopular.12 The ministry of which he himself forms a part, bears a very close resemblance to a good ministry in this particular. It is likely to prove too good, to be popular even with the Chamber of Deputies; and the newspapers already talk of a new modification, turning out M. Guizot, at least.13

[1 ]Pierre Antoine Berryer (1790-1868) was a lawyer who, although a royalist, had made himself unpopular with the regime during the Restoration by his defence of persons prosecuted by the State. He was sent by the legitimists to dissuade the duchesse de Berry from her enterprise but failed and was, ironically, arrested. His trial at Blois, from 15 to 17 Oct., is reported in Moniteur, 1832, pp. 1839, 1845-6, 1849-50, 1851-3.

[2 ]Following the testimony of François Tournier (ibid., pp. 1852-3), the avocat-général, Vilnot, abandoned the charge (ibid., p. 1853).

[3 ]Joseph Georges Demangeat (1787-1866) admitted, in writing, that he had submitted a false confession (ibid., p. 1852). Chateaubriand (the author of a letter Berryer was carrying to the duchesse), Fitzjames, and Hyde de Neuville had subsequently been arrested.

[4 ]Aristide Locquet de Grandville (1791-1853), friend of Berryer.

[5 ]“Il est appelé à Paris pour les [des explications] donner” (Moniteur, 21 Oct., 1832, p. 1855).

[6 ]For the reference to the ruling, see No. 180, n7.

[7 ]Pierre François Audry de Puyravault (1773-1852), industrialist and politician, deputy since 1822, actively opposed the Bourbons, distributed guns and ammunition to the people during the July Revolution, proclaimed Lafayette head of the National Guard, and was a member of the provisional commission.

[8 ]Bull. 160, No. 1570 (23 Nov., 1797).

[9 ]For Duval’s conduct at Grenoble, and Périer’s reaction, see No. 154. The troubles in the nearby Vendée over the duchesse de Berry had caused great dissension in the region. The government appointed Duval to Nantes to take a firm stand in the negotiations that led to her arrest in November.

[10 ]Louis Marie Rousseau de Saint-Aignan (1767-1837), appointed by Louis Philippe in August 1830.

[11 ]See Constitutionnel, 19 Oct., p. 2, and 20 Oct., pp. 1-2; and La Tribune, 20 Oct., p. 3.

[12 ]Speech on the public disorders (19 Feb., 1831), Moniteur, 1831, pp. 349-50.

[13 ]See, e.g., leading article, La Tribune, 24 Oct., 1832, pp. 1-2; “Opinion de la presse départementale sur le nouveau ministère,” Constitutionnel, 14 Oct., p. 2, and 15 Oct., pp. 1-2; and “Tactique du nouveau ministère,” Courrier Français, 16 Oct., 1832, p. 2.