Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/192

 162 TRANSACTIONS u H A P. To try to understand the relations between the XII . 1_ allied Generals of France and England, with- out knowing something of the repute in which Marshal St Arnaud was held by his fellow- countrymen, would be to go blindfold; and a narrator keeping silence on this subject woidd be hiding a fact which belongs to history, and a fact, too, which is one of deep moment, and fruitful of lessons. Paris stripped of the weapons which kill the body, and robbed of her appeal to honest print, was more than ever pitiless with the tongue; and M. St Arnaud being laid open by the tenor of the life that he had led, his reputation fell a prey to cruel speech. The people of the capital knew of no crime too vile to be imputed to the new Marshal of France now entrusted with the command of her army in the field. Yet, so far as I know, they failed to make out that he had ever been convicted, or even arrested, on a criminal charge; and when I look at the affectionate correspondence which almost through his life M. St Arnaud seems to have maintained with his near relatives, 1 am led to imagine that they at least — and they would have been likely to know something of the truth — could have hardly believed his worst errors to be errors of the more dishonouring sort. There- fore there is ground for .surmising that the Marshal was a man slandered. ]]nt in those times the chief defence against slanders upon public men is to be found in the award that results from free printing; and the right of free printing in France