Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
"He learned that the man in a black wig was a spy, sent with
him to Paris, _by the French Ambassador at the Hague_, and that
he himself would have been arrested then, (at Paris,) if Mr Le
Noir had not been at Versailles on the day of his arrival; and,
several persons having recently been arrested on very false or
frivolous grounds, he had left orders for no arrests being made
before his return, which was not until late in the evening of
the next day, when he was pursued, but not overtaken."
If it was this that Howard learnt, we think his informant must
have deceived him. An air of great improbability hangs over this
story. The French government is represented as being so anxious to
arrest Howard, if he should enter France, that it sends a spy to
travel with him from the Hague; if so, the identity of Howard was
sufficiently known to the police on his arrival at Paris. Yet we are
next told that an officer visits Howard at midnight, only to assure
himself that it _is_ Howard;--pays a visit, in short, that can have
no other effect than to give the alarm to his intended captive.
In addition to this, we are to suppose that this person, whom the
French government is so anxious to arrest, pursues his journey
unmolested, and spends five days at Marseilles, visiting the very
lazaretto to which it was known he was bound, and the inspection of
which that government was so solicitous to prevent.
As to the other motives by which Mr Brown accounts for these hostile
proceedings of the French government, we can attach no weight
to them whatever. On a previous visit to Paris, Howard had been
extremely desirous to survey the interior of the Bastille. Not
being able to obtain permission, he had boldly knocked at the outer
door, and, assuming an air of official authority, walked in. He had
penetrated to some of the inner courts before this little _ruse_ was
detected. He was then, of course, conducted out. He was obliged to
content himself with an account of the Bastille written in French,
and the publication of which had been forbidden by the government.
He obtained a copy, and translated it into English. For this, and
for another cause of offence of a far slighter character, it is
difficult to suppose that Howard had excited the peculiar animosity
of the French government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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