On 7 January, the late Minister for War, Le Blanc, was arraigned before the assembled Chambers, charged with being an accomplice of the murders of Gazan de la Combe, Sandrier, and the carter of La Malmaison, and of the attempted assassination of La Guillonière. The trial, into the details of which it is impossible to enter here, lasted a fortnight, but almost from the first day it was evident that the result was a foregone conclusion. The entry of the Duc d’Orléans, the Prince de Conti and their suites into the Grande Chambre was greeted with loud murmurs of approbation; that of the peers of the Condé party, the Ducs de la Feuillade, de Brancas, and de Richelieu, with derisive laughter. The Bishops of Sarlat and Avranches, Le Blanc’s brothers, the Maréchal de Bézons, his brother-in-law, the Chevalier Le Blanc, his son, and other relatives and intimate friends of the accused, sat together in a body and displayed so much emotion that many of the judges could hardly restrain their tears. And the line taken by the defence--that Le Blanc was a victim of party rancour and that the charges against him had been manufactured by the Government--was admirably calculated to appeal to the prejudice of a magistracy which almost invariably found itself in opposition to the Ministry of the day. [Illustration: CLAUDE LE BLANC FROM AN ENGRAVING BY P. DREVET, AFTER THE PAINTING BY A. LE PRIEUR] The proceedings, contrary to custom, were conducted with closed doors, the public being rigorously excluded; a great part of the evidence for the prosecution was ruled out, while everything that was likely to tell in favour of the accused was at once admitted. On the third day, the Ducs de la Feuillade, de Brancas, and de Richelieu withdrew, and were followed by all the counsellors of the Condé party; but the Duc d’Orléans and the Prince de Conti continued to encourage the defence by their presence for some days longer. Finally, on 21 January, the Parlement, by the unanimous vote of sixty-nine judges, acquitted Le Blanc on all four changes--a verdict which was received with applause by the public, with whom, owing to various reasons, of which we shall speak hereafter, the Ministry of _Monsieur le Duc_ was fast losing what popularity it had once possessed, and who, ignorant of the strength of the evidence against Le Blanc, saw in him only a victim of the hatred of the Pâris brothers and Madame de Prie. Notwithstanding what certain historians, who were unacquainted with the facts as they are known to-day, have asserted to the contrary, there can be very little doubt that the ex-Minister for War had benefited by one of those scandalous miscarriages of justice of which the records of the Parlement of Paris afford only too many examples. Before an impartial tribunal he would have been almost certainly found guilty on the charges relating to Gazan de la Combe and La Guillonière, and probably on the others also; and, whatever may be thought of the motives of