...Everybody has known, since 1823, that the commutation of Confalonieri's punishment was procured, at the last possible moment, by the agony of his wife at the feet of the Empress; and that the Duke of Orleans , as the head of the liberal party then existing in France, would have injured instead of helped her cause, if he had been known or even suspected to favor it. . . . . The assertions, however, about t...