devotion combined with indifferent calculation, and the same blindness,
the same perseverance, united to similar impotence in old and young, in
the generals and the soldiers. On the 1st of January, 1822, M. de La
Fayette arrived in the vicinity of Befort to place himself at the head
of the insurrection in Alsace. He found the plot discovered, and several
of the leaders already in arrest; but he also met others, MM. Ary
Scheffer, Joubert, Carrel, and Guinard, whose principal anxiety was to
meet and warn him by the earliest notice, and to save him and his son
(who accompanied him) by leading them away through unfrequented roads.
Nine months later, on the 21st of September in the same year, four young
non-commissioned officers, Bories, Raoulx, Goubin, and Pommier,
condemned to death for the conspiracy of Rochelle, were on the point of
undergoing their sentence; M. de La Fayette and the head committee of
the _Carbonari_ had vainly endeavoured to effect their escape. The poor
sergeants knew they were lost, and had reason to think they were
abandoned. A humane magistrate urged them to save their lives by giving
up the authors of their fatal enterprise. All four answered, "We have
nothing to reveal," and then remained obstinately silent. Such devotion
merited more thoughtful leaders and more generous enemies.

In presence of such facts, and in the midst of the warm debates they
excited in the Chamber, the situation of the conspiring Deputies was
awkward; they neither avowed their deeds nor supported their friends.
The violence of their attacks against the Ministry and the Restoration
in general, supplied but a poor apology for this weakness. Secret
associations and plots accord ill with a system of liberty; there is
little sense or dignity in conspiring and arguing at the same time. It
was in vain that the Deputies who were not implicated endeavoured to
shield their committed and embarrassed colleagues; it was in vain that
General Foy, M. Casimir Perrier, M. Benjamin Constant, and M. Lafitte,
while protesting with vehemence against the accusations charged upon
their party, endeavoured to cast the mantle of their personal innocence
over the actual conspirators, who sat by their sides. This manoeuvre,
more blustering than formidable, deceived neither the Government nor the
public; and the conspiring Deputies lost more reputation than they
gained security, by being thus defended while they were disavowed, in
their own ranks. M.