e 13: Before Lord Palmerston's Government had retired,
Simon Bernard, a resident of Bayswater, was committed
for trial for complicity in the Orsini _attentat_. He was
committed for conspiracy only, but, at the instance of the
new Government, the charge was altered to one of feloniously
slaying one of the persons killed by the explosion. As this
constructive murder was actually committed on French soil,
Bernard's trial had, under the existing law, to be held before
a Special Commission, over which Lord Campbell presided. The
evidence overwhelmingly established the prisoner's guilt,
but, carried away by the eloquent, if irrelevant, speech of Mr
Edwin James for the defence, the jury acquitted him. Truelove
was charged with criminal libel, for openly approving, in
a published pamphlet, Orsini's attempt, and regretting
its failure. The Government threw up the prosecution,
pusillanimously in the judgment of Lord Campbell, who records
that he carefuly studied, with a view to his own hearing
of the case, the proceedings against Lord George Gordon for
libelling Marie Antoinette, against Vint for libelling the
Emperor Paul, and against Peltier for libelling Napoleon I.]

[Footnote 14: The Queen had written:--"There are people
who pretend that the Emperor, who was once a member of the
Carbonari Club of Italy, and who is supposed to be condemned
to death by the rules of that Secret Society for having
violated his oath to them, has offered them to pardon Orsini,
if they would release him from his oath, but that the Society
refused the offer. The fact that all the attempts have been
made by Italians, Orsini's letter, and the almost mad state of
fear in which the Emperor seems to be now, would give colour
to that story." Orsini had written two letters to the Emperor,
one read aloud at his trial by his counsel, Jules Favre, the
other while lying under sentence of death. He entreated the
Emperor to secure Italian independence.]

_Mr Disraeli to Queen Victoria._

HOUSE OF COMMONS, _12th March 1858_.
(_Friday._)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer with his humble duty to your Majesty.

The Opposition benches very full; the temper not kind.

The French announcement,[15] which was quite unexpected, elicited
cheers, but only from the Ministerial side, which, he confesses, for a
moment almost daunted him.