Just called
to me, '_There, there, it is there you are to fire.' I fired. I
thought that all the others would do the same; but they made me
swallow the hook, and then left me to my fate, the rascals!_"
Poor DON LEON! So far the parallel is complete. The pistol was fired
against Spanish liberty; and the royal Just, finding the object missed,
sneaks off, and leaves his dupe for the executioner. There, however, the
similitude fails. LOUIS-PHILIPPE sleeps in safety--if, indeed, the ghosts
of his Spanish victims let him sleep at all; whilst for _Just_, the
carpenter, he is marked for the guillotine. Could Justice have her own, we
should see the King of the French at the bar of Spain; were the world
guided by abstract right, one fate would fall to the carpenter and the
King. History, however, will award his Majesty his just deserts. There is
a Newgate Calendar for Kings as well as for meaner culprits.
There are, it is said, at the present moment in France fifty thousand
communists; foolish, vicious men; many of them, doubtless, worthy of the
galleys; and many, for whom the wholesome discipline of the mad-house
would be at once the best remedy and punishment.
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