Thursday, January 8, 1852.—­From Sir Henry Ellis’s I went to Tocqueville’s.

[3]’In this darkness,’ he said, ’when no one dares to print, and few to speak, though we know generally that atrocious acts of tyranny are perpetrated everyday, it is difficult to ascertain precise facts, so I will give you one.  A young man named Hypolite Magin, a gentleman by birth and education, the author of a tragedy eminently successful called “Spartacus,” was arrested on the 2nd of December.  His friends were told not to be alarmed, that no harm was intended to him, but rather a kindness; that as his liberal opinions were known, he was shut up to prevent his compromising himself by some rash expression.  He was sent to Fort Bicetre, where the casemates, miserable damp vaults, have been used as a prison, into which about 3,000 political prisoners have been crammed.  His friends became uneasy, not only at the sufferings which he must undergo in five weeks of such an imprisonment in such weather as this, but lest his health should be permanently injured.  At length they found that he was there no longer:  and how do you suppose that his imprisonment has ended?  He is at this instant at sea in a convict ship on his way to Cayenne—­untried, indeed unaccused—­to die of fever, if he escape the horrors of the passage.  Who can say how many similar cases there may be in this wholesale transportation?  How many of those who are missing and are supposed to have died at the barricades, or on the Boulevards, may be among the transports, reserved for a more lingering death!’

A proclamation to-day from the Prefect de Police orders all persons to erase from their houses the words ‘Liberte,’ ‘Egalite,’ and ‘Fraternite’ on pain of being proceeded against administrativement.

‘There are,’ said Tocqueville, ’now three forms of procedure:  judiciairement, militairement and administrativement. Under the first a man is tried before a court of law, and, if his crime be grave, is sentenced to one or two years’ imprisonment.  Under the second he is tried before a drumhead court-martial, and shot.  Under the third, without any trial at all, he is transported to Cayenne or Algiers.’

I left Paris next day.

[Footnote 1:  I was not able to resist retaining this conversation in the Journals in France.—­ED.]

[Footnote 2:  It must be remembered that M. de Corcelle is an ardent Roman Catholic.—­ED.]

[Footnote 3:  This conversation was also retained in the Journals in France.—­ED.]

CORRESPONDENCE.

Kensington, January 5, 1852.

My dear Tocqueville,—­A private messenger has just offered himself to me, a Mr. Esmeade, who will return in about a fortnight.

The debate on Tuesday night on the Palmerston question was very satisfactory to the Government.  Lord John’s speech was very well received—­Lord Palmerston’s very ill; and though the constitution of the present Ministry is so decidedly unhealthy that it is dangerous to predict any length of life to it, yet it looks healthier than people expected.  It may last out the Session.