But to return from this digression to the indictment against McLeod. It is stated in the narrative of the proceedings, published by the journals, that this indictment, which, common sense would say, should be a recapitulation of the principal facts, contained seventeen counts, as they are technically called, or in other words seventeen formal modes of telling the same story of the guilt of the accused, not one of which was true, or, at any rate, was required to be true, and all of which were almost useless for the great purposes an act of accusation ought to seek to attain. And this multiplication of forms is intended to guard against that refining, metaphysical spirit, which prevails too much in our judicial tribunals, and which too often sacrifices the great objects of justice to subtle distinctions, more befitting the school of the Stagyrite, in the days of its power over the human intellect, than grave magistrates, in the nineteenth age of the world, charged with the peace of society and the protection of rights public and private. The immunity of crimes, of which we see so many examples, is more owing to the play of words (for it is nothing better) that disfigures our jurisprudence, than to any other circumstance what

ever.

The Palais de Justice of Paris is the Westminster Hall of France. It is situated upon the "Ile de la Cité," a small island in the Seine, where was the Paris of the Romans, then called Lutetia, which was first captured and afterwards rebuilt by Julius Cæsar. In infant societies, one of the first objects is security-places of defence and refuge, where the population may be safe against those sudden incursions to which semi-barbarous tribes are exposed. Hence it happened that the small islands in the Seine were the first positions which were occupied, and they now exhibit some of the oldest and most interesting monuments which have survived the revolutions of ages. Their dark, narrow and winding streets, and the style of their architecture, proclaim the antiquity of their origin. Upon this island is situated the Cathedral of "Notre Dame," one of the most splendid and imposing structures of the middle ages, and the "Sainte Chapelle," built in 1245, for the reception of the relics bought by St. Louis of Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople.

My bump of admiration is not greatly developed, and I am especially deficient in powers of architectural description. But I have hardly seen a building in Europe which has more powerfully affected me, or has given me a stronger impression of the genius and skill of the men whose talents seem to have been so admirably adapted to the construction of religious edifices, calculated to produce in the spectator that feeling of solemnity so much in unison with their objects. This church is now in a course of complete reparation; and with much good taste all the restorations are to be made in the style of the original work; so that, when finished, it will exhibit a perfect specimen of an order of which, though many remains exist, yet there are few which are not dilapidated and disfigured. The revenues of the city of Paris are enormous, amounting to almost twenty millions of dollars, levied, against all just principles of civil economy, principally upon articles of food, and thus operating oppressively upon the poorer classes of society. However, if the money is unwisely acquired, much of it is certainly wisely expended. The city authorities are vigorously pushing a system of improvement which in a few years will leave Paris without a rival. They have appropriated no less a sum than 7,800,000 francs to the reparation of the Palais de Justice, and they have just completed, at an expenditure of more than four million francs, the Hôtel de Ville, which is situated in the same quarter, but on the right bank of the river.

The Palais de Justice was the palace of the ancient kings of France. It is an immense pile of buildings, erected at different periods, and exhibiting every form of architecture, and its crennelled towers show, that the crowned heads who inhabited it, trusted for security, rather to its means of defence, than to their personal consideration or their regal characters. After it was abandoned for a more comfortable residence, it was appropriated to the judicial tribunals, and its vast space is now filled by the pomp and circumstance of law. It contains an immense hall, called the salle des pas perdus, and from this great promenade lateral doors open to the various courts, which occupy apartments adjoining it.

The physiognomy of a French tri

bunal of justice has nothing very peculiar or imposing. In the miscellaneous groups which watch its proceedings, and in many of its circumstances, it sufficiently resembles the English courts and our own. But the French lawgivers have not discovered that virtue in horse-hair, with which their neighbors across the Channel have bedecked the heads of their magistrates, and which some of their accute travellers who visit our country regard, if not as judicial wisdom itself, as at any rate its best security, and whose absence they lament as a fatal augury for the duration of our institutions. Alas for the "Times" and the "Quarterly Review!" The French judges and bar wear a small cap, which is uniformly black for the latter, but which is of various colors for the former, indicating the nature and rank of their office. The lawyers wear also a plain black gown, thrown over their ordinary dress, with a kind of white band hanging from the neck, resembling what is called a Geneva band, which gives them somewhat of a clerical appearance. It strikes me disagreeably, and this impression is still further strengthened by the loose and slovenly manner in which the dress is worn. As you enter the Palais de Justice, you find many little stalls, where various articles are sold, and here the Avocats deposit their costume; and each day, before the opening of the courts, you may see them resuming and hastily throwing it on. Its sombre appearance is in singular contrast with the vivacity of manner, and the rapidity and vehemence of conversation, which make part of the national character. Some of the judges wear red robes, and others robes of ermine. I have not felt interest enough on this subject to inquire on what distinctions these differences are founded. I believe, however, that they indicate, not only various degrees in the judicial hierarchy, but that they bear some relation to the nature of the duties to be performed, as the English judge puts on his cap of judgment when he is about to pronounce sentence of death.

There is no formal proclamation at the commencement of the session of a French Court. The Judges enter through a side door from their private apartments, and the audience rise and uncover while they take their seats.

The president proceeds immediately to call the causes, in the order in which they are placed in a roll hung up in a conspicuous part of the room. The relative situation of the judges, the bar, the jury,and the spectators, is not unlike that in our own courts. But there is a peculiar officer, who occupies a distinguished station in French jurisprudence, and who, with his substitute or deputy, has a prominent seat or badge assigned in the courts, and is clad in a special costume. This is the Procureur du Roi, the details of whose functions I do not fully understand. He is placed in a kind of intermediate position between the magistracy and the bar, and exercises a part of the authority of both. This office owed its origin to a humane effort on the part of the lawgiver to counteract a most cruel and absurd regulation, which seems to have generally prevailed in the middle ages, that which interdicted the aid of counsel to persons accused of certain capital crimes. The Procureur watches the interests of the government and of public morals in all cases, civil and criminal, public and private, and has always the right to offer his suggestions to the court. He generally closes the discussions, summing up the arguments which have been presented, with much impartiality, and concludes by giving his opinion respecting the nature and extent of the decision which is about to be pronounced.

When a French lawyer rises to address the court, he removes his little cap, replaces it, and then commences his observations. Understanding French but imperfectly, I have hardly a right to hazard an opinion upon the character of their forensic eloquence. But the impression it has made upon me is not very favorable. And in this remark, I mean to include not only their style and manner, but also the more important department of mental exertion. The cause I do not stop to investigate, but I consider the fact as certain, that in the public discussions in France, there is not that profound investigation, that analysis of the subject, that examination of principles, which often proclaims the power of the true orator, and subdues his auditory in the United States and in England. The French literati have given to the world many profound works, and many even in that most difficult branch of knowledge, the

operation of the human mind. But in life they are certainly not much inclined to abstraction. Their views of subjects are more striking and less metaphysical than similar pursuits among the Anglo-Saxon family. Their lawyers do not, as a shrewd judge in our courts once remarked, begin at Adam, whenever they begin their speeches. Nor do they as often push principles to extremes. In observing the progress of affairs in their courts, it is evident that disputed points of law are much more rare than with us. That subtlety which is for ever seeking to disturb the plain meaning of words, and to push every thing to its most possible and most remote consequences, and which is one of the greatest practical evils of our system of jurisprudence, seems unknown here. And yet their code is comparatively new, and although founded substantially upon their former system (itself a modification of the Roman law), still from the numerous changes it necessarily underwent to adapt it to the altered circumstances of the times and the country, and to give it that systematic form which constitutes such an essential part of its value, the ancient superstructure was in fact demolished, and the new one which has taken its place is as different as the characters of the periods in which they were respectively erected. In such a state of things, the discussers of the English common law would run wild in metaphysical investigations. Every step of onward progress would be met by doubts, difficulties and discussions. It seems to me the war of words would be interminable. Every ardent young man, in his legal noviciate, would find on every occasion some fearful consequence, to result now or ten thousand years hence, which nothing could avert but the adoption of his own views; and all this he would press with a vehemence of manner and a rotundity of diction, out of any just proportion to the circumstances of his position. But the French tribunals have marched steadily on, giving to words their natural import, and without meeting any of those frequent evils which elsewhere might have excited such dismay. Talleyrand's witty definition of speech, that it was given to conceal thoughts, is not more applicable to the school of diplomacy, than to that school of legal construction which tortures the phraseolo

gy of our statutes, till they are made to mean anything rather than what was intended by the law-maker. I have been sometimes not a little diverted at the remarks of the French journals, upon the trials in our courts, and at the facility with which persons notoriously guilty escape the punishment of their crimes, in consequence of this play of words, for it is nothing better, which seems to have engrafted itself upon our legal code. One of the old English anecdotes illustrating the absurdity of this tendency, and confirming the truth of the legal dogma, that he who misses a letter misses his cause, has just been resuscitated and is going the round of the French papers. The incident has been transferred to our country, and the scene laid in Boston, and it is looked upon here as a happy example of the judicial probity and wisdom of Judge Lynch, who is generally supposed, in continental Europe, to preside in almost all the courts of the Union. There is not a single journalist who has sufficient knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon institutions, to be aware that this absurdity belongs to the code which is common to the whole human family, and that this miserable perversion of the true ends of justice is as likely to happen in London as in Boston; and in fact happens every day, wherever the common law prevails, and where the practical good sense of modern times has not provided a remedy for that judicial logomachy, which was a professional disease in those ages that gave birth to our legal system.

Still, though our bar too often indulge in these speculations, it certainly brings to the investigation of its topics more power of analysis and a greater depth of reasoning than I have found here. With us, principles, though pushed too far, are examined with great power, and illustrated with much learning. The French lawyers frequently make brilliant displays; they are happy in occasional allusions to topics of exciting interest; they often aim at wit, and they are almost always loud in their address and vehement in their gesticulation. It would be a very false standard, if we were to measure the importance of the cause either in its principles or its amount by the earnestness which its advocate brings to the discussion. One can sometimes hardly preserve his gravity, when amidst the

thunder of declamation and the most violent muscular exertion, he discerns that the question in dispute is of the value of a few francs, or possibly of a few sous.

At this moment there is a trial pending before the Chamber of Peers, where are arraigned the persons accused of the late attempt to assassinate one or more of the princes of the royal family, while entering the city at the head of the 17th regiment, returning from Africa. This Chamber, under the existing organization of the government, in addition to its authority as a component part of the legislative power, has jurisdiction as a criminal court over all offences affecting the safety of the state, and which are brought before it by royal ordinance. Attempts against the life of any of the reigning family are included in this category; and however necessary the exercise of this jurisdiction may be, of which I do not profess to judge, it is attended with one prominent evil. The very dignity of the judicature and the éclat of the circumstances with which the proceedings are surrounded, nourish that passion for exhibition, which, whether for good or for evil, has so often and so sadly visited this land of strong impressions. The trial becomes a kind of spectacle, and the conspirator or the martyr, for he is too often one or the other, as political opinions divide the community, sees himself placed upon an elevation where the eyes of the whole country are directed upon him. The disciples of the school of exaltation (by this word I mean to express their feelings only, without reference to their cause) find in this circumstance a compensation for the hazard they encounter, or rather one powerful motive for the commission of the crime, in the pomp and imposing formality of its trial and punishment. This is a state of feeling which is, happily, without the range of our observation in the United States. This sublimation of the imagination, which pushes its unhappy votaries to the most frightful excesses, that they may make their little hour of display, even if it be upon the judgment seat and the scaffold, forms no part of the Anglo-Saxon mental organization. No doubt there are political evils enough to remedy here and elsewhere in Europe, and the remedy, I think, is coming rapidly and certainly. But that reme

VOL. IX.-NO. XLIX.

2

dy will not be hastened nor strengthened by assassination. It is an odious, revolting crime, for which there can be no justification and ought to be no ad

vocates.

I will quote from the proceedings in the Chamber of Peers a few of the questions and answers; or rather, I might say, a part of the dialogue between the President of the Chamberas the first judge of a court is always called here, and who in this case is the Chancellor of France-and the accused, placed at the bar. I shall limit my extracts to some of the more piquant scenes, best calculated to give a correct notion of the physiognomy of an exhibition so little in conformity with the grave character of our judicial investigations. These displays are sometimes eminently theatrical; and when an event of this kind is anticipated, the tribunes are filled to overflowing by the amateurs of this species of judicial oralism, not pugilism, and the journals are replete with the reports, which are eagerly perused and admired.

The Chamber of Peers holds its sessions at the Luxembourg, one of the splendid palaces which have been erected from the contributions of the taxpayers, and whose extent and decorations render but the more palpable the profusions of luxury and the miseries of poverty. It was the scene of some of the most striking events during the Revolution, and among others it was the residence of the Directory, or as they are sometimes called, the Five Kings. On approaching this stately edifice, when the high court of criminal jurisdiction is in session, the first observation which occurs to an American is the display of military force by which it is invested. Round the exterior wall, in the extensive court, and in the basement story, officers of police, gensd'armes, municipal guards, national guards, troops of the line, are everywhere upon duty. You would almost suppose you were entering a beleaguered city. No one is admitted without a ticket previously obtained from the proper authority; and this you present from door to door, till by successive indications you reach the box to which you are destined. The hall now occupied by the Peers is a plain, unassuming apartment, which is temporarily devoted to this object, while their proper room is in a course of reparation

and embellishment. The President is seated in an elevated tribune, and the members are ranged in seats, disposed in a semi-circular manner, in his front. They all wear an uniform, which consists in an embroidered coat, white pantaloons with a gold stripe, a sword and a chapeau-bras. In the general appearance of the tribunal there is nothing very impressive. I think the spectator is more struck with the advanced age of the Peers, than with any other circumstance. Almost all of them have passed the middle term of life, and not a few of them are approaching its extremity. This is the necessary consequence of the constitutional provisions which regulate the duty of the executive government in the selection of these functionaries. No person can be called to the Chamber of Peers, except those who have filled important employments, or who have otherwise given proofs of capacity and knowledge. The charter enumerates the various classes of public men from whom these selections must be made, such as marshals, generals, admirals, ministers, préfets, mayors, judges, members of the Institute, members of the departmental councils, and others; and prescribes the number of years they must have filled these employments before they are eligible to the upper Chamber. The appointments are for life, and without compensation.

But I proceed to make the extracts from the examination of the parties. In doing so I shall not observe any continuity, because I seek only general results, and that within a short space:

President.-Fougeray has declared that the packet of cartridges found at his house, had been delivered to him by you.

Bouger. He lied, if he said that.

The President to Launois.-You wrote also in the same letter, "don't

forget to tell all those persons to keep the secret, for if they don't, I shall be ruined." Of course this secret might have had grave consequences to you?

Launois. My object was that these persons should not compromit me in consequence of my having been seen at Madame Douilroux.

President.-You terminate thus: "Many compliments to all my achave sold us.' There are rascals who quaintances.

Launois.-I did not know what I wrote. Very certainly, if I have comprehended the bearing of my words, I should not have written in that manner, for Quenisset could not accuse me, since he declared in my presence that he did not see me during the 13th.

President.-You will remark the bearing of the word sold.

Launois.—I did not comprehend it at the moment I wrote the letter.

President. You did not say, they have accused you, but sold you; that is, they have revealed things that ought to have been kept secret.

Launois. He could not sell me, it was impossible; but he might have compromitted me.

President.-You avow you wrote that letter?

Launois.-Yes, I wrote it, but at what a moment!

word for word. I quote the interrogatory of Prioul,

The Chancellor.-Did you not make the acquaintance of Quenisset in the prison of St. Pélagie?

Answer. I saw him at St. Pélagie. Question.-Was it not Matthieu who put you in relation with him? Answer.-Nobody put me in relation with him.

Q.-Were you not one of those who