The monster is hatched at last! The trials began yesterday, and we are all rejoicing exceedingly at having found ourselves alive in our beds this morning. What will betide us and it, as its scales or its plumes push forth and gather strength from day to day, I know not; but "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof;" and I do assure you in very sober earnest, that when Galignani's paper arrived this morning, the party round the breakfast-table was greatly comforted by finding that nothing more alarming than a few republican demands on the part of the prisoners, and a few monarchical refusals on the part of the court, took place. This interchange of hostilities commenced by some of the accused refusing to answer when their names were called;--then followed a demand for free admission to the chamber, during the trials, for the mothers, wives, and all other females belonging to the respective families of the prisoners;--and next, a somewhat blustering demand for counsel of their own choosing; the body of legal advocates, who, by general rule and common usage, are always charged with the defence of prisoners, not containing, as it should seem, orators sufficiently of their own _clique_ to content them. This was of course stoutly refused by the court, after retiring, however, for a couple of hours to deliberate upon it--a ceremony I should hardly have supposed necessary. The company of the ladies, too, was declined; and as, upon a moderate computation, their numerical force could not have amounted to less than five hundred, this want of gallantry in the Peers of France must be forgiven in favour of their discretion. The gentleman, however, who was appointed, as he said, by the rest, to request the pleasure of their society, declared loudly that the demand for it should be daily renewed. This reminds one of the story of the man who punished his wife for infidelity by making her sit to hear the story of her misdeeds rehearsed every day of her life, and pretty plainly indicates that it is the plan of the accused to torment their judges as much as they conveniently can. One of the prisoners named the celebrated Abbé de Lamennais, author of "Les Paroles d'un Croyant," as his advocate. The _procureur-général_ remarked, that it was for the interest of the defence that the rule for permitting lawyers only to plead should be adhered to. Next came a demand from one of the accused, in the name of all the rest, that permission for free and unrestrained intercourse between the prisoners of Lyons, Paris, and Marseilles should be allowed. This was answered only by the announcement that "the court was adjourned;" an intimation which produced an awful clamour; and as the peers quitted the court, they were assailed with vehement cries of "We protest! ... we protest!... We will make no defence!... We protest! ... we protest!" And so ended the business of the day.