PIERRE BONAPARTE.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 649, 23 April 1870, Page 2

PIERRE BONAPARTE.

The Argus correspondent writes of the affaire Pierre Bonaparte. This pi'inee of the Imperial family is a son of Lucien, and a first cousin of the Emperor—a desultory, ill-conditioned fellow, who had been the hero of many scandalous and evil adventures—a mauvais sujet, scarcely acknowledged at the Tuileries. who lived an obscure life in a Parisian suburb with a " woman of the people," whom he had made his wife. Prince Peter, who was once a hot Red-Republican, has since become a fanatic Imperialist, and it was his custom to indulge in a newspaper controversy of a feverish sort with the enemies of the family. The language of Prince Peter used to be on these occasions, to use a French phrase, of the most accentuated character. A dispute begun in a Corsican newspaper, was somehow transplanted to Paris, and was taken up by the Marseillaise, Rochfort's journal, in an article signed by Si. Paschal Grousset. This having led to recriminations of a severely personal hind, it was resolved at the office of the Marseillaise that several duels should be fought between members of its staff and his Highness Peter. M. Paschal Grrousset sent two of his friends, and M. Rochefort himself other two to the Prince's residence. The seconds of Mr Grousset, M. de Ponvielle and M. Victor Noir (alias Salmon), were the first to arrive, and being ushered upstairs discoursed the Priuce as to their errand. Then followed a scene, of which the truth will, perhaps, bo never known. The Prince avers that after interchange of uncomplimentary epithets, M. Victor Noir struck him a blow on the cheek, immediately upon which M. Ponvielle drew out a revolver. The Prince then, in self-defence, took up a pistol (which was happily near) and fired at M. Noir, shooting him dead almost instantaneously. M. de Ponvielle then made some ineffectual attempts at cocking his revolver, but eventually made a strategic movement out of the room. M. Ponvielle's own story is that the Prince, after abusing himself and his friend as carrionmongers, fired at M. Noir, and then turned his pistol at himself (M Fonvielle), sending a shot or two through his paletot. The " incident" ended by the appearance of the gens d'armes, and the arrest of the Priuce Pierre Bonaparte. The next day the excitement in Paris was at fever height. The Marseillaise openly charged a prince of the Imperial family with a deliberate murder, and called aloud upon the people to avenge the blood of Victor Noir. M. Rochefort, in his place in the Chamber, repeated the same charge in the most offensive language. For a time the dynasty itself trembled before this new and terrible danger. The populace were wild with rage and gathered in anxious masses on the boulevards. A. spark would have fired the train, and led to a conflagration such as has not been known since the days of June, IS-iS. Had the thing occurred but a few days before, when M. Rouher was still in power nothing could have prevented a furious outbreak. As it was, Paris escaped by the narrowest of chances from another of those bloody scenes with which her streets are familiar. At the critical moment, when a collision between the mob and the troops seemed inevitable, M. Rochefort's courage or his nerve failed him, and he ordered the people to disperse. The agitation, however, continued to smoulder for two or three days more, and can scarcely be said to be ended now. The strangers fled from Paris by thousands, to the desolation of the shopkeepers, who, consequently, swear vengence against Rochefort and his mob. The Government acted with great firmness throughout this severe trial. They have already brought M. Rochefort to trial for his language against the Em-

peror, and have procured him six months' imprisonment. As for the Prince Pierre, he is locked up in the Pelagie, awaiting his trial for manslaughter before the High Court of Justice. When the news of the affair was brought to the Emperor the morning after the affray, by M. Ollivier, it is reported that two big tears slowly rolled down that hard, immovable cheek—a phenomenon said to be with-

out precedent in history, and a proof of the sense which the august personage entertained of the extremity of his danger.