In a manuscript life of Jemmy Twitcher—the work will shortly appear under the philosophical auspices of SIR LYTTON BULWER—we find a curious circumstance, curiously paralleled by a recent political event. Jemmy had managed to pass himself off as a shrewd, cunning, but withal very honest sort of fellow; he was, nevertheless, in heart and soul, a housebreaker of the first order. One night, Jemmy quitted his respectable abode, and, furnished with dark lantern, pistol, crowbar, and crape, joined half-a-dozen neophyte burglars—his pupils and his victims. The hostelry chosen for attack was “The Spaniards.” The host and his servants were, however, on the alert; and, after a smart struggle in the passage, the housebreakers were worsted; two or three of them being killed, and the others—save and except the cautious Jemmy, who had only directed the movement from without—being fast in the clutches of the constables. Jemmy, flinging away his crape and his crowbar, ran home to his house—he was then living somewhere in Petty France—went to bed, and the next morning appeared as snug and as respectable as ever to his neighbours. Vehement was his disgust at the knaves killed and caught in the attack on “The Spaniards;” and though there were not wanting bold speakers, who averred that Twitcher was at the bottom of the burglary, nevertheless, his grave look, and the character he had contrived to piece together for honest dealing, secured him from conviction.
Jemmy Twitcher was what the world calls a warm fellow. He had gold in his chest, silver tankards on his board, pictures on his walls; and more, he had a fine family of promising Twitchers. One night, greatly to his horror at the iniquity of man, miscreants surrounded his dwelling and fired bullets at his children. The villains were apprehended; and the hair of Jemmy—who had evidently forgotten all about the affair at “The Spaniards”—stood on end, as the conspiracy of the villains was revealed, as it was shown how, in anticipation of a wicked success, they had shared among them, not only his gold and his tankards, but the money and plate of all his honest neighbours. Jemmy, still forgetful of “The Spaniards” cried aloud for justice and the gibbet!
Have we not here the late revolution in Spain—the QUENISSET conspiracy—and in the prime mover of the first, and the intended victim of the second rascality, KING LOUIS-PHILIPPE, the JEMMY TWITCHER OF THE FRENCH?
The commission recently appointed in France for the examination of the Communists and Equalised Operatives, taken in connexion with the recent bloodshed under French royal authority, is another of the ten thousand illustrations of the peculiar morality of crowned heads. Here is a sawyer, a cabinet-maker, a cobbler, and such sort, all food for the guillotine for attempting to do no more than has been most treacherously perpetrated by the present King of the French and the ex-Queen of Spain. How is it that LOUIS-PHILIPPE feels no touch of sympathy for that pusillanimous scoundrel—Just? He is naturally his veritable double; but then Just is only a carpenter, LOUIS-PHILIPPE is King of the French!
The reader has only to read Madrid for Paris—has only to consider the sawyer Quenisset (the poor tool, trapped by Just), the murdered Don Leon, or any other of the gallant foolish victims of the French monarchy in the late atrocity in Spain, to see the moral identity of the scoundrel carpenter and the rascal king. We quote from the report:—
Quénisset (alias DON LEON) examined.—“Just said to me, pointing to the body of officers, ‘You must fire into the midst of those;’ I then drew the pistol from under my shirt, and discharged it with my left hand in the direction I was desired.”
O’DONNELL, LEON, ORA, BORIA, FULGOSIO, drew their pistols at the order of LOUIS-PHILIPPE and CHRISTINA, and merely fired in the direction they were desired!
“Where was this society (the Ouvriers Egalitaires) held?”—“Generally at the house of Colombier, keeper of a wine-shop, Rue Traversière.”
“What formed the subject of discourse in these meetings, when you were there?”—“Different crimes. They talked of overthrowing the throne, assassinating the agents of the government—shedding blood, in fact!”
For the Rue Traversière we have only to read the Rue de Courcelles—for Colombier the wine seller, CHRISTINA ex-Queen of Spain. As for the subject of discourse at her Majesty’s hotel, events have bloodily proved that it was the overthrow of a throne—the murder of the constituted authorities of Spain—and, in the comprehensive meaning of Quénisset—“shedding blood, in fact!” At the wine-shop meetings the French conspirator tells us that there was “an old man, a locksmith,” who would read revolutionary themes, and “electrify the souls of the young men about him!” The locksmith of the Rue de Courcelles was the crafty, sanguinary policy of the monarch of the barricades. We now come to MADAME COLOMBIER, alias QUEEN CHRISTINA.—
“Do you know whether your comrades had many cartridges?”—“I do not know exactly what the quantity was, but I heard a man say, and, Madame Colombier also boasted to another woman, that they had worked very hard, and for some time past, at making cartridges.”