current through all society in Paris, M. Mires was tried
and condemned to five years' imprisonment. He appealed, a PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN RUSSIA.. new trial was granted, and he was again condemned. An rp HE Czar, we are told this week, will in August summon informality enabled him to appeal again, and he VMS trans- .1 a Parliament, and the news often contradicted is this fared for trial before the High Court of Douai. All this ime substantially true. the French could never cross the Channel. They had, however, time observers acquainted with the ante-chambers of the as usual, been betrayed, and found stretched right across their Empire pronounced the whole affair a farce. The Emperor, line of march a line of entrenchments, guarded on one side they said, wished for justice, but M. Mires would elude her by the sea and the Merrimac, and on the other by an almost grasp. He knew too much of the speculations and the impassable marsh, and defended by nearly 100,000 men. character of the liamelouks of the empire, coati tell too Roada there are none, the country is a mass of deep mud, many stories of the road by which in France power leads to the Federal general is evidently unaware of his enemies' fortune ; might even, it was hinted, bring forward formal strength, and the attack will be a most formidable enterprise. accusations of his own, to which even that lax society would A retreat is almost impossible, even if opinion in the listen with angry disgust. The trial began, and M. Mires States would permit it, and it is scarcely safe to suffer the was accused, among other charges, of embezzling 5,000,000 transport fleet to remain so near to their iron antagonist. of francs from a land company he had constructed. This The general must advance, and a repulse in such a posi- speculation was almost unique in his transactions, for it seems, tion would undo one-half of all that has been achieved. though extravagantly profitable, to have been perfectly fair. It would not, perhaps, affect the ultimate result. The He simply bought a great plot of land in Marseilles at a low nation which was only stimulated by Bull's Run into the price, sold it in minute lots, and pocketed the difference, creation of an army 600,000 strong, will not be quelled by plus, said the procureur, 200,0001., which bad disappeared disaster, however great, or resistance, however despairing. from the funds. Something or other in this particular accu- But a defeat might protract the campaign for one more aation upset M. Mires' strong nerve. He sprang up, and year, render emancipation inevitable, and produce a financial with all the gesticulation of a born Oriental, declared confusion from which the constitution could not emerge that he could and would explain to whom he had paid the unchanged. The change of position has placed North and sum. He did not, of course, mean to admit an embezzle- South once more on an equal footing, so far as Virginia is ment, but to plead secret service for the benefit of concerned, and last month the North was confessedly only the company. He had, however, admitted that he halting to make certain victory swift. knew where the money had gone, and was liable to Finally, the Confederate chiefs are rising fast to the height searching interrogation. The judge never asked him a of circumstances, and proclaiming themselves a Revolution- word ; the procureur never returned to the point ; and after any Power. The act of the rebel Congress, throwing open a trial of unusual brevity all sentences were quashed, and all ports of the South to all nations except the United States, M. Mires declared a free man. What wonder that Paris may be taken as an act of bravado, or even as a bribe offered should laugh as at a " comedy badly played," or that a deep to Europe to intervene. But the extraordinary message suspicion of the tribunals should spread itself through all of President Davis is certainly no bravade. He has re- ranks of society. In political trials Frenchmen tolerate a lati- commended his Congress to decree the levy- en masse, to tude we should not bear. That the State should obtain its ver- send all white males between 18 and 35 into the army, diet seems natural to men who, under the Monarchy of July and to organize the remainder into corps of reserve. The as well as under the Empire, have witnessed but one result American journals see in this order the signs of a coming to every political trial. The only difference is, that under peace, for they take it to mean despair. So do we ; but the Orleanists the trial was a sensation drama reproduced all there are two forms of despair, and one of them is more over France, and greatly influencing opinion ; and under the formidable than the most strenuous courage. Jefferson Davis Empire it is a private representation, which influences only knows his men. He would never have sent such a message the audience. But Mires' trial was one for fraud, and in- without a certainty that it would be accepted, or without a volved the interests of ordinary civil life. Yet even here the strong belief that the governing class could carry the order Government is supposed to intervene, and a man who is out. If the order is obeyed, if the Government of the South willing to state what he has done with great sums which is strong enough to order every male into the field, the North have disappeared is acquitted without having stated it. It will be matched by armies against which it can have no ad- does not matter one jot whether the suspicion in this case vantage in number. It is easy to talk of unwilling aid ; but is just or unjust. The mere fact that it is universal, that the history proves that conscript armies can fight, even when as measure of pressure exercised on the court is scanned and in Russia composed of unwilling men, and the work to be done explained, reveals a condition of society which, if it does not is nothing less than to conquer a whole population. It can, we justify the impotent wrath of the educated, may, at least, . believe, be accomplished ; for Southern society is built on a explain and excuse it. People who believe that if a apecu- treacherous quicksand. The slaves only can feed a whole lator can but make friends he can swindle them with im- population gone to the wars, and the slaves may at once be punity, may be pardoned for a few epigrams.
months' imprisonment, and then be liable to be sent to JUSTICE IN FRANCE. Cayenne by administrative order. Of course under such a
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