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• those who were convicted with me, marched to the scaffold. • Death indeed was terrible to my apprehension ; but the ' miseries I am now undergoing, are a thousand times worse ;

for the language which I am compelled to hear from the de• praved wretches around me, is a slower and more lingering · death than that from which I was saved. I envy the fate of

my friends! It is true, that the juge d'instruction is directed to visit the prisons in his arrondissement ; and every president of assizes is also required to inspect the maisons de justice. These duties have dwindled into an idle formality, for no penalty attaches to the neglect and non-execution of them.

We promised to say something of the mise au secret, or secret confinement;-that stain of French justice, ---that reproach of a gallant and enlightened nation! If we describe it as it exists in the fulness of its horrors at this very moment, we are conscious that we shall make a more than usual demand upon

the faith of our readers. It is well known, that the question, that savage relic of the old law of France, was finally abolished on the 9th October, 1789. But, from the fancied necessity of obtaining confessions, or the revelations of accomplices in certain cases, there has gradually grown up a new species of torture, under which the stoutest frame and the most stubborn courage must at last sink. The facts which establish the existence of this merciless procedure, are beyond all controversy; and although we would indulge, for the honour of our common nature, a reluctance to believe it, yet, the details of its frequent practice are too numerous and well authenticated, to admit even of that dubious solace.

The victim of this accursed torture is thrown into a narrow dungeon, damp and paved with stones, and from which fresh air is entirely excluded. If a ray of light finds its way into this gloomy cavern, it is only through the intervals of a small grated window, or rather hole pierced through the wall. The furniture is one miserable French blanket. Neither chair nor table is permitted, so that the prisoner is obliged to stand upright, or lie down. Every employment in which the mind might find a slight escape from its miseries,-books, paper, pens, are strictly excluded. A scanty portion of bread is all his aliment, and even that portion is sometimes designedly withheld from him. From time to time, he is led out of this sepulchral cell to undergo an interrogatory; but his recollections are confused, and his answers perplexed and contradictory, The hesitations, the embarrassments of the wretch are turned by this beneficent process into fresh heads of accusation. There are instances of its having been continued for 150 days. M. Béranger, whose work we have just cited, was present at a

a trial before a court of assizes. The offence was a political one, and the principal proofs, except those which were attempted to be extorted from the prisoners, were furnished by the agents of police.

« * You contradict yourself,” said the president, addressing one of the prisoners, « in

many

of
your answers."

“ Sir," answered that unhappy being, “ I have undergone so many interrogatories, that I hardly know what I am saying. I have been au secret!! This torture I suffered 100 days. For fifty hours I received no food, and thrice in that time I was interrogated. The last time was at midnight, and I could scarcely stand for hunger. When I was carried back, I asked for bread.' It was refused as being beyond the usual hour of distribution, I remained six weeks without change of linen or water to wash in. My wife tried frequently to bring me a few necessary, articles ;-in vain. My three first interrogatories were succeeded by twenty others. If the scaffold had then been offered me, I should have thought it a mercy. My reason was shattered. When the judge interrogated me, I had lost my recollection. You

hesitate,' said he ; you contradict yourself; you are agitated--then you are guilty.' Now, Mr. President, can you be surprized, if you find some contradictions in my answers." The appearance of the man bore full testimony to the sufferings he described. The crowd shuddered with horror. A loud murmur burst forth, and it was with some difficulty that order could be restored.'

It is nugatory to deny the existence of this dreadful practice, because it rests upon no direct enactment in the code. If it actually exists, no matter whether it is avowedly sanctioned, or arises out of a legal ambiguity, France has gained little by the solemn abolition of torture in 1789. It is, in truth, a revolutionary revival of torture adopted in the worst of times, and is now one of the saddest memorials of that guilty period.

After this melancholy episode, we resume our delineation of a French criminal process, of which we have only entered into some of the preliminary formalities. The first step after a summons or apprehension, is the interrogatory of the prisoner. It is remarkable that the Revolution, in the fermentation of which so many dreadful abuses were worked off

, should have left this odious feature of the old law untouched. The interrogatory, however, of the ancient regime was of a much milder

a character. It was, indeed, conducted in secret, as at present, but the jurists divided interrogatories into immediate and suggestive; the former being such as bore directly on the subjectmatter, the latter being such insidious and circuitous questions as answer to our cross-examinations of witnesses. The former kind were, then, the only ones permitted : a single suggestive interrogatory vitiated the whole proceeding. At present, not only is this odious part of the French law carried on in secret, but the magistrate who puts the interrogations, invariably displays all his professional skill and acuteness in making the accused party betray himself. Not unfrequently the examination takes place at night, when the prisoner is suddenly awakened out of his sleep, and in a state of mind far from being sufficiently unclouded to undergo it; when it is not uncommon to tell him that the matter is already detected, that his accomplices have revealed every thing, and that it will no longer avail' him to deny his guilt. All bis answers, taken at different examinations, are put together, and afterwards form a part (unhappily too important à part) of the proceed. ings.

We can scarcely move a step in travelling through the present mode of criminal proceeding, without finding traces of the old law. Of these, the most obnoxious usages are those which respect the examination of witnesses; but will it be imagined, that a witness is summoned, interrogated by the juge d'instruction, and his answers written down by the greffier, -and that all this passes neither in the presence of the prisoner nor of his counsel ? A malicious witness, therefore, may depose to the most unfounded falsehoods without check or restraint ;-a dark, tortuous, disingenuous procedure alike at variance with common sense and justice. Hence, also, a witness, his depositions being thus taken down and remaining on record as memorials against himself, will naturally adhere to them afterwards, with the tenacity of a man jealous of his credibility, and anxious to prop it up by inflexibly and obstinately persisting in his first allegations.

These proceedings, viz. the examination of the prisoner and that of the witnesses, (both private,) being now completed, they are next submitted to the chamber of council, consisting of three judges, one of them being the juge d'instruction bimself, who has hitherto conducted the whole business, from the warrant to the present stage of the proceeding. There is an inherent self-love in our natures, that makes us expert sophists where our own penetration or judgement may be called in question, and renders us more enamoured of our blunders, than disposed to repair them. It would have been sound policy to exclude this officer from the chamber, where, in fact, he sits in judgement on his own acts.

Be this as it

he makes his report to the chamber, who sit with closed doors. The prisoner is not present, either personally or by counsel ; so that if the juge d'instruction, who has himself reduced the several depositions to writing, (and that too in his own style and language,) has designedly spread any colouring or exag

geration over it, the prejudice must inevitably be imparted to his colleagues, who can only see with his eyes, or judge with his feelings. If two of the judges deem the proofs insufficient, the accused is hors de cour, (out of court,) and there is an end of the proceedings: if sufficient, they then determine the class or category of the offence ; viz. whether it is one which induces criminal, or only correctional penalties,-a distinction which, in some degree, corresponds to our classification of offences-into felonies and simple misdemeanours. Here, however, we start a strange and unaccountable absurdity. We have just seen, that a majority of the three is required to decide as to the sufficiency of proof; but, if a single voice pronounces the offence liable to peines afflictives ou infumantes, corporal or infamous,) the culprit is sent before the criminal tribunal. Nine years experience have testified, says M. Béranger, that this single voice is that of the juge d'instruction. The proceedings are now ripe for the procureur du roi. But what can more strikingly denonstrate the clumsiness of the machine, than the cumbrous intervention of the chamber of council, consisting of three judges, in which a single person only is empowered to qualify the offence, and determine thereby the jurisdiction where it is cognizable,--a question by far the most important in the preliminary part of t!le proceedings?

At length, however, and for the FIRST TIME, the accused party is allowed to say something for himself, and to give in such memorials as he thinks fit. Up to this time, he has remained a stranger to the proceedings against him, and, specifically speaking, has neither been made acquainted with his accuser nor his accusation. He has been kept also in the same ignorance of the names and depositions of the witnesses. He has had to fight, with his eyes blind-folded, an armed adversary. To the poor, the drawing up of their memorials is a heavy and insupportable expense; and five days only are al. lowed, before the chamber of accusation, consisting of five judges, (the next link in this interminable chain of procedure,) comes to a determination. No other document forms the basis of that determination than the report of the procureur generale, who, as soon as their decision is notified to him, proceeds to draw

up the acte d'accusation, or indictment. It is by means of this instrument, in fact, that the prisoner becomes first acquainted with the crime laid to his charge. It is the basis, moreover, of all the future proceedings, and is the most important document in the whole process. But, in the drawing of this paper, all the technical rule and regular principle, the

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precision and accuracy of an English indictment, are wholly disregarded. On the contrary, it is swelled out to an interminable length, and abounds with those ornaments of rhetoric, so misplaced in such an instrument, but which are never unwelcome to the ears of a Frenchman, whose intellect is not to be reached but through a rhetorical medium. It sometimes exceeds forty folios, and occupies three hours of the trial in reading

And here we must again remind our readers of the torturing slowness, the leaden, funereal pace of a French criminal process, by shortly recapitulating the several halts which are made in it, and which render the law's delay' in that country, one of the most intolerable of its grievances, while it oppresses the innocent with those hopes deferred that make his heart sick, and dooms him to suffer, in many respects, the penalties

After the first interrogatory, he is, as we have seen, remanded to prison. Once lodged there, the law is seized with an unaccountable lethargy. The juge d'instruction has now to prepare the proces verbal, and to examine the witnesses; but these duties are stimulated by no penalty or responsibility for a negligent or relaxed execution of them. Distracted by a variety of similar proceedings, all going on at the same time, like the lawyer in Tom Jones, he probably wishes himself out into twenty pieces, while the prisoner, who, in his dungeon, is vainly invoking the tardy genius of French jurisprudence, must wait his leisure. At last, however, his report is ready for the chamber of council. Here another delay takes place, for the whole procedure must be previously submitted to the procureur du roi, on whose table it probably slumbers unobserved for several days. When it reaches the chamber, in common probability the instruction is found incomplete, when a further investigation is ordered; so that, after several months have been consumed, and after so profuse an expenditure of ink and paper, the proceeding at last draws its slow length, like the wounded snake, into the court of assizes. Yet, even here, a delay may occur. If Mr. Procureur du roi can shew sufficient cause for not bringing on the case immediately, he may move to put off the trial.

The result is, that it rarely happens in France, that a prisoner is brought to trial within nine.months from his commitment.

But he has now passed through the unmeaning labyrinths, the “ passages that lead to nothing," which retard the preliminary parts of his process, and has reached the court where his fate is to be decided. Here we look in vain for the humanity, the tenderness, the compassion which temper the execu