me when Rouen was brought by Thiers before
the Court of Peers, for a libel on that most august and erudite body."

"Aye! and a most, liberal, honest and honorable conclave--the
thrice-sodden and most solemn knaves and mules!" cried Rollin.

"Rouen at the bar demanded Armand Carrel for his defence," continued
Louis Blanc. "To refuse was impossible, but a bitter pill must it have
been to Thiers and Mignet to consent. They must have foreseen what came.
Both, now in the Ministry, only four years before both had been in 'Le
National'--Thiers as the colleague of Carrel, and Mignet as a
collaborateur. The files of the journal were produced, and, lo! there
stood paragraphs proven to have emanated from the pens of the
prosecutors far more libelous and venomous on the august peers than
anything Rouen had published. You all remember the scene that ensued and
won't forget it soon."

"No; nor shall we soon forget that noble passage in Armand Carrel's
defence," said Flocon, "in which he evoked the shade of Marshal Ney, and
from the wild excitement that followed, one would suppose that it had
really risen in the hall, bleeding and ghastly, and pointing to its
wounds, like the ghost of Banquo, to blast his hoary, jeweled and noble
assassin, who, seated on those very seats, had sentenced him to an
infamous doom. Carrel was instantly stopped, but General Excelmens rose
in his seat and pronounced the charge true. It was then reiterated with
tremendous applause from the galleries. How Carrel escaped punishment
for contempt is not known. Rouen was convicted of libel on the peers, of
course; his sentence was a fine of ten thousand francs and imprisonment
for two years."

"But of what words did this famous libel actually consist?" asked Ledru
Rollin.

"Louis can tell you better than I," said Flocon.

"Why, the words were severe enough, no doubt," replied Louis Blanc, "but
Thiers and Mignet had themselves expressed the same ideas a hundred
times, though in less powerful and pointed language. The passage which
seems particularly to have given offence was this, that in the eyes of
eternal justice and those of posterity, as well as in the testimony of
their own consciences, these renegades from the Revolution, these
returned emigrants, these men of Ghent, these military and civil
parvenus, these old Senators and spoiled Marshals of Bonaparte, these
Procureur Generals, these new-made nobles of the Restoration, these
three or four generation