tive justice of England. Well might the words of Macheath be put into the mouth of a French criminal :

• The Judges are met,

A terrible set.' His look, his voice, his gesture, are interpreted against him. If he has not the confidence of hardened guilt,-if his answers to the interrogatories (often continued for three successive days) are confused or at variance with the procés verbal, (which he is not allowed to see,) a fatal impression is felt against him, from which neither the ordinary firmness of the jury, nor the religion of their oath, is sufficient to guarantee them. M. Berryer, one of the counsel of Castaing, lately tried for murder at Paris, alluding to the various contradictions of the prisoner, so unfairly pressed against him by the judge who interrogated him, justly exclaims :

• Is it so very remarkable then, that, charged with so foul a crime, distracted by the recollections of his parents, his infant,—the friendship he is supposed to have betrayed,-affrightened himself by the contradictions into which he has been goaded, and forming against him a perplexed series of inferences fatal to his innocence, is it strange that he should hesitate and feel alarm on so awful an occasion, in the presence of death, which is soon to usher him before his Maker? What must be the feelings of a man thus called upon to throw his life, in the very flower of his years,—all that is dear to him, upon the uncertain issue of a public trial, and to trust only to the infirmity and frailty of human judgements ?'*

The oath administered to the jury has this particularity : it is not to try the issue joined according to the evidence,' but,

according to their consciences as good and just men ;-a vague, and often the most dangerous criterion by which fallible beings can decide. The acte d'accusation is then read, which, in Castaing's case, (we adduce it only for an example, occupied fifty-six closely printed octavo pages, and, during the reading of which, the court was twice adjourned. It is, in other words, a long pleading, in which every presumption hostile to the prisoner is urged, all his contradictions in the procés verbal are insisted on, and all the probable topics of his defence are refuted. Who could suppose, that, in a bill of in

а dictment, the most insignificant circumstances would be stated with so much pomp of phrase, as in the following passage,

« Procés complet d'Edme Samuel Castaing, docteur en médicine." Paris, 1823.

which we copy from the acte d'accusation in the case of Castaing?

• Moreover, before the death of Auguste Ballet, and whilst they were at the auberge together, he (Castaing) took especial care, contrary to the ordinary usage, to pay for every thing from hand to mouth, as it was brought to them. A circumstance which they who have been accustomed to observe upon the mind of man, will not deem unimportant. It is evident, that Castaing wished that every body about him, should be pleased with him, and entertain towards him the good will that is ordinarily excited by kindness.'

We cite this sentence at random, as a specimen of the materials which compose an acte d'accusation.

Perhaps, the most striking contrast between the forms of an English, and those of a French court of justice, would be found in the style, spirit, and mode of address to the jury, made in the two countries by the respective counsel for the prosecution.

· The counsel for the crown in England,' observes M. Cottů, • lays before the jury a summary of the case, which is nothing but a more detailed and circumstantial repetition of the indictment; guarding himself, however, from every sort of invective against the prisoner, and making no reflections on his depravity. Facts must speak, and the counsel is forbidden to excite feelings which must be called forth by them alone. The counsel finishes by saying that he shall call witnesses to substantiate the charges against the prisoner. This opening address very seldom lasts more than a quarter of an hour.'

The French advocate rarely exhibits this degree of moderation. An opportunity occurs of exhibiting himself to advantage, and it is one which no French man, French woman, we had almost said, French child, has sufficient resolution to resist. In place, therefore, of a calm statement of facts, the public prosecutor delivers a long rhetorical discourse, which is a sort of commentary upon the acte d'accusation. Every common-place which the hackneyed subjects of human crime may call to his recollection, every figure of a laboured and artificial eloquence, is marshalled against the unhappy wretch at the bar, of whose destined punishment these dull and vapid effusions are no slight aggravation; and though equally alien from good taste and humanity, they seldom fail in stifling all sympathy or pity that might be felt in his behalf. Cicero himself could scarcely have denounced Catiline with more impassioned declamation, than that employed by a procureur general, to obtain the conviction of a person accused of any of the common offences which usually fill an assize-calendar. It might be imagined

that the government itself was shaken to the centre by every felony and misdemeanour committed within its frontiers,

But the prisoner has still to undergo an ordeal, compared to which, all that he has yet experienced is light as air ; viz. bis public examination by the president of the court;a member, be it observed, of the chamber which sends him to trial, and, therefore, in most cases naturally disposed to support an accusation, the failure of which would be an imputation on his own decision. Accordingly, on this occasion, all the professional ingenuity and skill imparted by the long habit of framing questions fitted for extorting an absolute confession of guilt, or bewildering him in a labyrinth of contradictions, which answers the same end, -all' this is played off upon delinquents for the most part ignorant of the meaning of the questions, and wholly unarmed against the insidious and dangerous effect of them.

• The president,' says M. Cottû, questions the prisoner.... Who is the president?-a member of the royal court which has placed the prisoner in a state of accusation; a colleague of the attorney-general or officer who supports the accusation ; finally, a magistrate charged with detailing the proofs of it to the jury: the honour of the body to which he belongs, his connections with the accuser, the interest of his own reputation, every thing induces him, imperceptibly, if not to hope for the success of the accusation, at least to fear lest some of the proofs upon which it is founded, should escape the inex. perience of the jury:

• He questions the prisoner !.... We have seen how severely: persuaded almost the whole time of the certainty of the crime, bis object is to draw an absolute confession from the culprit : he presses, twists, and turns him, scarcely allowing him time to breathe; and if the prisoner manifests an insuperable resistance, he becomes angry and exasperated, and almost his enemy.

A more unequal conflict can hardly be imagined. Just emerging from the gloom of a dungeon, the criminal is called on to play the principal part as in a theatre, where a thousand eyes are upon him. Is it to be wondered at, that he should answer with hesitation and embarrassment, or even disclose circumstances that may lead to his conviction? The judgepresident, on the other hand, has every advantage. The answers of the prisoner before the juge d'instruction are in his hand. If his answers on this occasion vary from those which he gave formerly, the jury are reminded of the contradiction in terms strougly implying that the variance is deemed a proof of guilt.

No ear attuned to the sounds of humanity or justice, but must shrink with horror from such an examination, continued

sometimes for several days, and conducted against a poor, trembling delinquent, sinking beneath the consciousness of crime, and deserted by his faculties in this awful hour of his tribulation. How forcibly does the humane intimation of a British judge, when an imprudent declaration is ready to escape the lips of a prisoner, ' to take heed lest he convict • himself'-how forcibly does this recur to our recollection, as if to heighten the savage deformity of the French practice ! There are, indeed, sophisms ready at hand to defend the most disgraceful procedures; and even M. Cottû, while he reprobates the examination of the prisoner, ascribes it to the ardent love of truth inherent in his countrymen. But, though the detection of crimes may be necessary to social welfare, let it be understood, that it never receives a severer wound, than when public justice is at variance with humanity and mercy.

. This ardent love of truth has generated several lamentable errors in the judicial system of France, and we meet with them in the next stage of the trial-the examination of the witnesses. After the examination of each witness, M. Cottû states, the president puts fresh questions to the prisoner, and fresh falsehoods occur on the part of the latter, with still increasing animosity on the part of the judge. It is a sacred maxim in an English court, that what are called leading questions, such as give hints or suggestions to the witness, are strictly forbidden. In France, the examination of the witnesses is not conducted by the counsel, who can ask no question but through the mouth of the president, who shapes it in his own way, and most frequently, it may be added, to answer his own object; which, we lament to say, is, in almost every instance, the conviction of the offender.

By article 315 of the Code d'Instruction, the prisoner is furnished with a list of the witnesses only twenty-four hours before the trial. It may be said, that he would have had no earlier notice (except in high-treason) in England; but the previous examinations before the magistrate in the presence of the prisoner, must have afforded ample intimation of the names and characters of those who are to testify against him. Passing this by, however, the law which authorizes the president to call any person he pleases to elucidate the matter, and which absolves the person so called from the solemnity of an oath, adding at the same time, that the declarations of a person so called, are to be considered only as renseignements, is vicious, absurd, and mischievous. Whether the evidence of such a man is called testimony or renseignement, they are both attestations of fact. Granting that there Vol. XXI. N. S.

2 H

is a distinction between them, what are the respective portions of weight attributable to each? There may be cases, wherein the renseignement has more force than the formal deposition. The distinction calls to our mind the old juridical practice, according to which, proofs and lialf proofs were put into the scale, and extended by the celebrated parliament of Toulouse to quarters and eighths; subtleties which not only render the study of law perplexed and contradictory as an artificial science, but work irreparable evil, where the life and fame of a fellow-creature are involved in the decision; which substitute for fixed and unbending rules of evidence, the most vague and unlimited discretion, -breaking down the sanctions and the solemnities by which judicial truth is distinguished from the random, mis-shapen, arbitrary asseverations of coffeehouse or tea-table gossip. Nor is it unusual, when the prisoner, or his counsel, desires the president to put a specific question, for the latter to hem and haw about its relevancy. Frequently he refuses to put it at all without such modifications as wholly defeat its purpose. This is not all. The witness wishes to rectify his deposition; and if the alteration is favourable to the accused, he is brow-beaten and intimidated. His first declarations before the juge d'instruction are quoted against him, and he is threatened with being punished for prevarication, if he persists; one of the many mischiefs resulting from the secrecy of the preliminary part of the proceeding, by enabling the judge, who, according to the spirit and practice of French jurisprudence, is the prosecutor, to reproach both the prisoner and the witnesses with their contradictions, and to compel the latter to give unfair and biassed testimony. The witnesses being heard, the time arrives for the defence, which is stated by the prisoner's advocate, (or, if more than one, advocates in succession,) to which the advocate-general has a right to reply. It is much to be lamented, that the same extravagant and exaggerated species of discourse, which we reprobated in the prosecuting counsel, is resorted to, if possible to a much greater extent of overheated statement or sophistical reasoning, by the prisoner's advocate, To this, M. Cottû bears a strong testimony.

« To prevent a conviction for the most palpable crimes, we see young barristers, of gentle manners, unblemished integrity, of pure and inflexible principles, throwing doubt on the most irrefragable proofs ; fabricating suppositions devoid of all probability ; laying down maxims subversive of morality and social order; infusing guilty terrors into the simple minds of the jurors, and deriving a vain and empty joy in having snatched a scoundrel from due punishment.

• Sometimes, to crown all, the attorney-general replies, and the