was cleared; the cries of To arms!' down with the mayor !' 'cut his scarf!' were uttered from the crowd, and stones were thrown at the windows of the house of the commandant of the national guard. The first section of the troops, pressed and assailed on all sides, was soon obliged to charge bayonets; a platoon was broken and a soldier was disarmed; the second section, thinking only of its safety, and not waiting for orders, loaded muskets. In the meanwhile, the walls of the cemetery were scaled, and a numerous mob, composed chiefly of women and children, dug a pit in haste. The captain, seeing the danger to which his troop would be exposed by remaining longer in a defensive situation, asked the mayor if he would consent to a reinforcement being sent for, of two or three companies: the mayor refused, and rather than render himself responsible for the consequences, ordered the troop and gendarmerie to leave the Commune-which order was obeyed. The retreat, leaving a clear field to the rebels, the corpse, which had been let down by a side window from the church into the cemetery, was then buried in the extempore grave.

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In consequence of these circumstances, the criminals were brought before the Correctional Tribunal, some as guilty of rebellion against the public force, when acting in the execution of the orders and decrees of authority, and others as accomplices of the aforesaid rebellion.

"The first witness was the mayor of the Commune of Montmagny, who deposed to the general facts we have just given, but who, on being questioned as to the principal authors of the émeute, replied, that, being occupied by the important events in the midst of which he was placed, he was unable to distinguish

any one.

K

"The rural guard, of Alsatian origin, and a very bad speaker of French, who was at the scene of the émeute at the moment when it was supposed to be most violent, made such an obscure deposition, that the Tribunal seemed to believe that he laboured to be unintelligible; no precise information was to be obtained from him, and he was soon sent back.

"Other witnesses, the gendarmerie and the officers and soldiers of the 28th of the line, whose aid had been demanded for the preservation of order, confirmed, on all points, the facts of the accusation.

"Julien,' said Captain Correard, opposed a constant resistance to the bayonets, and on being commanded to retire, replied I am at home, I will remain here.' Other rebels around him said, 'we are also armed!' The witness recognised the greater number of the accused as having shewn the greatest violence, and ended by stating a fact, which, by explaining the cause of the rebellion, softened the offence. It was,' he said, the general complaint, that in the cemetery of the Ruillons, a pit scarcely dug soon filled with water, and that when a bier was placed there it was necessary, to prevent it from floating, to force it down and hold it with a fork, until it could be covered with earth.'*

"Lieutenant Versigny reported, that being attacked on all sides by the rebels who fell upon the soldiers, he had the bayonets pointed. The position was so critical, that he was obliged to present the point of a bayonet to the body of one of the infuriated mob. At this moment, when an unguarded shot might have been the signal for frightful calamities, a

* Did our London population exhibit a similar sensitiveness on this point, the police would have little else to do than preserve the peace in the church-yards.

woman (whom the witness pointed out on the criminals' bench as the woman Tillet) was placed between the man and the bayonets. The men,' added the Lieutenant with a slight smile, though greatly exasperated, had the precaution to put the women before them as a rampart, and the latter, with the most confident temerity, advanced even under the platoons, saying 'Ah, bah! they will not fire upon women!'

The President bestowed upon the officers the praises which were due to their firm and humane conduct.

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The soldier Jarnot, whose bayonet had been snatched away, recounted the circumstance of this act, and pointed out the prisoner Julien, with whom he had been confronted, as the author.

"Julien warmly protested his innocence.

"The President then proceeded to examine the accused. Some confessed they had done the acts imputed to them, among whom was Viard. To the President, who asked the motives which had urged him to revolt, he replied, I have long dwelt on the borders of a river; when we took a body out of the water, we thought we fulfilled a holy work by putting it in firm ground: now they want us to put our dead into the water-this caused me to revolt.'

Lefevre, the youngest of the accused, confessed as he had done in the written instruction, that he assisted to barricade the church door and sounded the tocsin; but he added, that he only sounded it by order of Gurinier, a municipal councillor and also a chanter, who, as soon as the funeral service had ended, mounted the belfry and said to him, 'strike! strike! that the people may come; and, to excite his zeal, that Gurinier himself struck the bell with a stone he held in his hand.

"Gurinier stoutly denied this imputation, accusing Lefevre of wishing to justify himself at his expense. Lefevre, however, persisted.

"The woman Deschamps, being interrogated in her turn, replied, that she had done neither more nor less than any body else, and that if she scaled the walls of the cemetery, it was because being driven back by the troops, she saw no other way of getting out of the tumult.

"The other persons accused denied having taken any part in the disorder, while all confessed that they were at the scene of the émeute.

"On the meeting again of the Audience, which had been suspended for half an hour, M. G. Dupin, the King's Procureur, in the midst of a deep silence, expressed himself in the following terms:

"A deplorable émeute broke out at Montmagny on the 14th of July last: let us observe that this émeute had not the character of those which have of late years afflicted the country. It had nothing to do with politics: its principal, nay, its only motive, was a religious feeling, if indeed that name can be given to a feeling that neither shrank from contempt of a sacred place-the profanation of the dead-nor from the consequences of a struggle which might have terminated in homicide—indeed, why did it not so terminate? Had an order been hurried by the impatience of the soldier, attacked in his very ranks, blood would have flowed. The order was not given -honour to the prudence of the mayor-to the calm firmness of the leaders, and to the forbearance of the soldiers. We have not, as with some barbarous people, seen victims slaughtered on a tomb !'

"After having made an exact recital of the scenes of disorder which afflicted the Commune of Montmagny, on the 14th of July, he laid these troubles to

the inconceivable obstinacy of the municipal council, which, warned to provide a suitable place of burial, had always refused. After having shewn that the mayor, deprived of his natural support, was obliged to give way to the rebellion-Authority,' added the Procureur, might have taken a striking revenge by sending an important force to dig up the body from the forbidden cemetery, and transport it to the new one; but it would not dispute about a corpse. To justice, then, is entrusted the care of finding and punishing the authors of this rebellion.'

Proceeding to the coasideration of the particular facts, the King's Procureur thought he ought, for the sake of impartiality, to abandon the accusation as far as it concerned three of the accused: to the others he applied articles 209, 211, 59 and 60, of the penal code. While we require condemnation,' he said in conclusion, we do not give up the right of advising. You who have not feared to oppose an émeute to the execution of the laws, know that it is a bad way of obtaining the redress of grievances, however legitimate may be the cause of complaint.'

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M. Plinte could not allow the heavy charge of having deprived a soldier of his bayonet, to fall on Julien. He knew, he said, for certain, and it was notorious at Montmagny, that his client was not the committer of this guilty act; but the real culprit was of the same height and bulk as Julien, and hence arose the error into which the soldier Jarnot had fallen in designating the latter. The culprit was present; but he (the Advocate) had no authority to name him; he could only appeal to his honour.

A lively interest was apparent throughout the assembly a confession was expected, but no answer came from the criminal benches.

""

The President then addressed himself to the