Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 - Patrick Fraser Tytler (good books to read in english txt) 📗

shall just think of my poor son whom Napoleon took for the conscription." She then by degrees worked herself up into a fit of tears, and really cried for a pretty tolerable space of time. A most amusing soliloquy took place at our house the night before the national guard left Aix, in pursuit of Bonaparte. This lady came to pay us a visit; and after crying very prettily, she exclaimed, "Oh, the barbare, he has taken away my son—he has ruined my concert which I had fixed for Thursday—we were to have had such music!—and Jule, my son, was to have sung; but Jule is gone, perhaps to——Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!—and I had laid out three hundred pounds in repairing my houses at Marseilles, and not one of them will now be let—and I had engaged Ciprè (a fiddler), for Thursday; and we should have been so happy."—But this is a most extraordinary episode to introduce when talking of the state of religion.

Some measures taken latterly by the King, seem to have been but ill received by the French, and they then shewed how little attention they were inclined to pay to religious restraints, which were at variance with their interests and their pleasures: I allude to the shutting of the theatres and the shops on Sunday. Perhaps, considering the nature of their religion, and the long habit which had sanctioned the devoting of this day to amusement, the measure was too hasty. Certain it is, that neither this measure, nor the celebration of the death of Louis XVI. did any good to the Bourbon cause. The last could not fail to awaken many disagreeable feelings of remorse and of shame: It was a kind of punishment to all who had in any way joined in that horrid event. At Aix, the solemn ceremony was repeatedly interrupted by the noise of the military. We remarked one man in particular, who continued laughing, and beating his musket on the ground. On leaving the church, our landlord told us, he was one of those who had led one of the Marseilles bands at that time; and that there were in that small community, who had assembled in church, more than five or six others of the same description. How many of these men must there have been in all France whose feelings, long laid asleep, were awakened by such a ceremony!

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

Napoleon's greatest ambition was to inter-meddle with everything in the kingdom. With most of the changes which his restless spirit has produced, the French have no great reason to be satisfied; but all agree, that with regard to the administration of justice, and the courts, for the trial of civil suits in France, the alterations which he has introduced, have been ultimately of essential benefit to the country. Previous to his accession to the government, the sources of equity were universally contaminated, and the influence of corruption most deeply felt in every part of the constitution of their courts. On the accession of Napoleon to the throne, the most respectable and able men among the judges and magistrates were continued in their appointments, and the vacancies, occasioned by the dismission of those found guilty of corruption, (many of whom had, during the confusions of the revolution, actually seized their situations), were supplied, in frequent instances, by those of the older nobility, whose characters and principles were known and respected. In addition to this, the civil and the criminal codes were both carefully revised. In this revisal, the greatest legal talents in the nation were employed. The laws of different nations, more particularly of England, were brought to contribute in the formation of a new code; and by a compilation from the Roman, the French and the English law, a new institute, or body of civil and criminal justice, was formed, intended for the regulation of the whole kingdom. Previous to this change, it must be observed, that the laws, in the different provinces of the kingdom, were in some measure formed upon, and always interwoven with, the particular observances and customs of their respective provinces; the inevitable consequence was, that every province, possessing different usages, had also a different code. [44]"La bizarrerie des loix," says Mercier, "et la varieté des coutumes font que l'avocat le plus savant devient un ignore des qu'il se trouve en Gasgogne, ou en Normandie. Il perd a Vernon, un procés qu'il avoit gagné a Poissy. Prenez le plus habile pour la consultation, et la plaidoyerie, eh bien, il sera obligé d'avoir son avocat et son procureur, si on lui intente un proces dans le resort de la plupart des autres parlemens." The consequence of this was an uncertainty, intricacy, and want of any thing like regulating principles in the laws, and an incoherency and inconsistency in the administration of both civil and criminal justice.

The improvements introduced by the late Emperor, have therefore, considered under this point of view, been of no common benefit to the kingdom, as they have given, to some measure, certainty, principle and consistency, the essential attributes of good laws, to what was formerly a mass of confusion.

At Aix, where we resided, the head court is held for four provinces, and there is a college for the study of law and divinity. Most of the acquaintances I there formed were gentlemen belonging to the law; many of them had been liberally educated, were men of talents, and some of them possessed acquirements which would have done honour to any bar. The opinion of all these was strongly in favour of the new codes; and they go so far as to say, that when the matter comes under consideration, there are very few things which the present government will change, and very few judges who will lose their situations.

They allowed, however, that latterly, Napoleon had forgotten his usual moderation, and, incensed against the importation of foreign merchandise, had instituted a court, and formed a new and most rigorous code for the trial of all cases of smuggling and contraband trade. But fortunately for the people, this court had scarcely commenced its severe inflictions, when the deposition of Napoleon, and the subsequent peace with England, rendered its continuance unnecessary. The punishments awarded by this court, were, in their rigour, infinitely more terrible than that of any other in Europe. There was pot the slightest proportionment of the punishment to the offence. For the sale of the smallest proportion of contraband goods, the unfortunate culprit was condemned immediately to eight or ten years labour amongst the galley-slaves. For the weightier offences, the importation of larger quantities of forbidden goods, perpetual labour, and even death, were not unfrequently pronounced.

I was informed, that when Napoleon commanded the Senate to pass the decree for the institution of this court, one of the members asked him, if he believed he would find Frenchmen capable of executing his orders, and enforcing such laws? His answer was, "my salaries will soon find judges;" and the consequence of this determination, upon his part, was, that while he paid the judges of the other tribunals at Aix by a miserable annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds, and two hundred pounds, the judges of the court of contraband were ordered to receive seven hundred pounds and eight hundred pounds. Napoleon was perfectly right in his opinion; that such was the want of honour and principle, and such the excessive poverty of France, that these salaries would soon find judges. I have heard from unquestionable authority, that, for the last vacancy which was filled up in that court, there were ten candidates.

The court-room, in which this law tribunal was held, is now occupied by a society of musical amateurs, and a concert was given there, during our stay at Aix, once every week. One of the lawyers, in talking of this court, informed me, that in that very room, where the judges of the court of contraband sat, he had played in comedy and tragedy, pleaded causes, had taken his part in concerts, and danced at balls, under its several revolutions, its different political phases of a theatre, a court of justice, a concert and a ball-room. Exactly similar to this was the fate of the churches, palaces, and the houses of individuals under Napoleon, which were alternately barracks, hospitals, stables, courts of justice, caffés, restaurats, &c.

The penal code of the late Emperor breathes throughout a spirit of humanity, which must astonish every one acquainted with his character. The punishment of death, which, according to Blackstone, may be inflicted by the English law in one hundred and sixty different offences, is now in France confined to the very highest crimes only; the number of which does not exceed twelve. A minute attention has been paid to the different degrees of guilt in the commission of the same crime; and according to these, the punishments are as accurately proportioned as the cases will permit. One species of capital punishment has been ordained instead of that multitude of cruel and barbarous deaths which were marshalled in terrible array along the columns of the former code. This punishment is decapitation. The only exception to this is in the case of parricide, in which, previous to decapitation, the right hand is cut off; and in the punishment for high-treason, in which the prisoner is made to walk barefoot, and with a crape veil over his head to the scaffold, where he is beheaded. Torture was abolished by Louis XVI., and has never afterwards been resumed.

After Napoleon had it in view to form a new code for France, he was at great pains to collect together the most upright and honourable, as well as the most able amongst the French lawyers; the principal members of whom were Tronchet, one of the counsel who spoke boldly and openly in defence of the unfortunate Louis XVI., Portalis, Malville, and Bigot de Preameneau. Under such superintendance, the work was finished in a short time.

The trial by jury has been for some time established in France; but the Emperor, dreading that so admirable an institution, if managed with an impartial hand might, in too serious a manner, impose restraint upon his individual despotism, took particular care to subject those crimes, which he dreaded might arise out of the feelings of the public, to the cognisance of special tribunals. All trials originating out of the conscription, are placed under the care of a special court, composed of a certain number of the criminal judges and military officers. In France, there is no grand jury; but its place is supplied by that which they have denominated the Juré d'Accusation. This is a court composed of a few members amongst the civil judges, assisted by the Procureur-General or Attorney-General. Their juries for the trial of criminals are selected from much higher classes in society than with us in England; a circumstance the effect of absolute necessity, owing to the extreme ignorance of the middling ranks and the lower classes. In the conducting of criminal trials, the manner of procedure is in a great measure different from our English form. A criminal, when first apprehended, is carried, before the magistrate of the town, generally the Mayor. He there undergoes repeated examinations; all the witnesses, are summoned and examined, in a manner similar to the precognitions taken before the Sheriff of Scotland, and the whole process is nearly as tedious as upon the trial. All the papers and declarations are then sent with the accused, to the Juré d'Accusation, who also thoroughly examine the prisoner and the witnesses; if grounds are found for the trial, the papers are immediately laid before the "Cour d'Assize." Before this court, the prisoner is again specially examined by its president. His former declarations are compared and confronted with his present answers, and the strongest evidence against him, is often in this manner extracted from his own story. It might certainly be imagined,