In effect, two months had scarcely passed, when an attempt was made to resolve into a legal reality the sublime Utopia of Cæsar Bonesana. Unfortunately, this attempt was awkward, imperfect, almost hypocritical, and made in a different spirit from the general interest. It was in the month of October, 1830, as may be remembered, that the question of capital punishment was brought before the Chamber of Deputies, and discussed with much talent, energy, and apparent feeling. During two days there was a continued succession of impressive eloquence on this momentous subject; and what was the subject?--to abolish the punishment of death? Yes and No! Here is the truth. Four “gentlemen,”--four persons well known in society,[7]--had attempted in the higher range of politics one of those daring strokes which Bacon calls crimes, and which Machiavel calls _enterprises_. Well! crime or enterprise,--the law, brutal for all, would punish it by death; and the four unfortunates were prisoners, legal captives guarded by three hundred tri-coloured cockades at Vincennes. What was now to be done? You understand the impossibility of sending to the place of execution, in a common cart, ignobly bound with coarse ropes, seated back to back with that functionary who must not be named,--four men of our own rank,--four “gentlemen”! If there were even a mahogany Guillotine! Well, to settle the matter, they need only _abolish the punishment of death_; and thereupon the Chamber set to work! Only yesterday they had treated this abolition as Utopian,--as a theory, a dream, a poetic folly. This was not the first time that an endeavour had been made to draw their attention to the cart, the coarse ropes, and the fatal machine. How strange it is that these hideous details acquired such sudden force in their minds! Alas! it was not on account of the general good that they sought to abolish capital punishment, but for their own sakes,--as Deputies, who might become Ministers. And thus an alloy of egotism alters and destroys the fairest social combinations. It is the dark vein in statuary marble, which, crossing everywhere, comes forth at each moment unexpectedly under the chisel!