The trial of QuisissEr, who would have been the slayer
of Princes if he could have made his hand obey his intent, has com- menced. The proceedings have the less interest on account of the extravagant stupidity of the chief actors in the conspiracy—for such it appears to have been. The existence, indeed, of a vast secret society is not proved ; but a very extensive disposition to such treasonable combinations is proved. The story of QuEsus- sees political seduction, from the paths of ordinary vice to be ruffian on a grand scale, discloses the formation of secret associa- tions with some immtnse undefined Objects of revolution, lurking in wine-shops and subsisting in prisons, where the thieves and the "Republicans" constitute rival factions. Still these burlesque con- spirators carry on their intrigues for years; are connected, it would
seem by the grouping of the prisoners in this case among a few trades, and by their own classification, with the more stable inte- rests and purposes of the French working-classes ; and they read such respectable papers as the National. There is a sort of prac- tical confusion of ideas here, which indicates a very disorganized state of society. Well, this burlesque assemblage of Illuminati meet with QaNISSET, a violent fool with exasperated animal passions; mould him, through the course of months, into a "man of action"; put a pistol into his hand, and send him out " to fight the Seventeenth" and shoot some Prince—and he goes! The Morning Chronicle, apparently upon the well-known principle that when the cast-off clothes of the beau appear upon the footman their reign is over, infers that, treason having descended to the idiots in France, it is going out of fashion. But treason is no temporary fashion in France; it is only the shady side of the na- tional taste for the grand, and for converting contemporary history into an acted drama in which Frenchmen play the part of Romans. QUENISSET is evidently "as pleased as Punch" with being for the time "in possession of the stage," and he will very likely feel the same when he "retires up the stage" to the guillotine : the papers all enjoy the mock-heroic tragedy, although QUENISSET after FIESCHI is a sad falling-off in the cast : and even the judicial framers of the report on the preliminary evidence display a relish for the " tableaux vivants" of the critical positions, by the way in which they retrace them over and over again, and dwell upon them in their prolix composition. No—treason is not going out in France because blockheads play with it : rather its universal esteem is proved, just as in most countries the commonest imple- ment of men is imitated in the favourite toy of the children.
