The trial of the prisoners accused of conspiracy before the
French Senate sitting as a High Court was brought to a conclusion on Thursday, after lasting nearly four
months. On Tuesday M. Andr6 Buffet was found guilty "of having concerted a plot designed to destroy or change the Government, or to excite the citizens to arm against the constitutional authority," the Court further deciding that such plot was followed by the commission of acts preparing for the execution of it. A similar verdict was also returned in the case of M. Deroulede on Wednesday, "extenuating circumstances" being allowed in either case. M. Guerin—the hero of Fort Chabrol—was also found guilty on the same charges, as well as on those of the illegal possession of arms and of insulting and assaulting public functionaries. Here, again, "extenuating circumstances" were admitted, and U. Blowitz happily recalls the mot of Alphonse Karr on the introduction of this principle into French Law : "A man has just been condemned for having cut another in pieces. The Law grants him extenuating circumstances because the pieces were very small " The sentences were announced on Thurs- day. MU. Buffet and Deroulede were condemned to ten years' banishment, and M. Guerin to ten years' im- prisonment in a French fortress. M. de Lur-Saluces, who had absconded, was also sentenced to ten years' banish- ment in default. Inasmuch as seventy-five persons were originally accused, of whom fifteen were brought to trial, the conviction of only three—a poet, a butcher, and the Duke of Orleans's chief agent—can hardly be regarded as a triumph for the Ministry. It may be urged, however, that they have done well not to press too hardly on the engineers of a ludicrous fiasco, already half killed by ridicule. A wholesale and severe condemnation might have converted mock con- spirators into the genuine enemies of the State.
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