One of the oldest and most characteristic features of the French
administration of justice, the _juge d'instruction_, has but recently
disappeared. The very extensive powers of this magistrate, but vaguely
defined by law and custom, lent themselves readily to the abuses which
undoubtedly constituted a grave defect in the criminal jurisprudence of
the nation. To him were confided all the details of the preliminary
investigation of a crime and the detection of the criminal, the seeking
for clues, the right of search, of arrest of any suspected characters,
of summoning witnesses and experts, of interrogating the accused,
and--but too generally--of wresting a confession from him by any means
that might present themselves. One of the methods employed was the
ostentatious consultation before him of a blank memorandum which, the
accused was given to understand, contained the complete avowal of a
confederate. In the famous _affaire Wilson_ of a few years ago,
concerning the alleged sale of decorations of the Legion of Honor, M.
Vigneau, the official charged with this investigation, telephoned to one
of these purchasers of red ribbons in the assumed character of M.
Wilson. These irregular practices, however, it is asserted, were mostly
practised by younger and more inexperienced Juges d'Instruction, and
were greatly disapproved by the graver and older magistrates. The
accused--who not infrequently would declare subsequently that the
statements which he was reported to have made by the _curieux_, in
thieves' slang, were but a distorted version of his words--was
considered to have an additional security in the presence of the
magistrate's _greffier_, or clerk, who took down his testimony, and in
the fact that he himself need not sign this statement if he considered
it inexact.
It was recognized that the qualities, physical, moral, and mental,
possessed by a truly able and upright Juge d'Instruction were
necessarily exceptional. He should have a very extensive judicial
knowledge and experience, he should be gifted with powers of precision,
of observation, of decision, of activity, of patience, and of evenness
of temper. He should be affected by nothing, surprised by nothing. His
bodily health should be sound, his brain cool, and his digestion
excellent. He was liable to be summoned from his bed at any hour of the
night to investigate a new crime; and when he entered his cabinet
tranquilly at one o'clock in the afternoon, it was possible that a
minute afterward he would be leaving it hastily on the trail of a fresh
offence against justice. In Paris, these magistrates, twenty-eight in
number,--with the exception of two who sat in the Petit
Parquet,--occupied the three upper stories of the Palais; in the
antechamber of each, under the eye of an attendant, or _garçon de
bureau_, might be found waiting, more or less impatiently, a number of
witnesses and persons interested, from all classes of society. In the
inner room, before the magistrate seated at his desk, and flanked by his
greffier, the prisoner or the suspected criminal, guarded by two
soldiers of the Garde Municipale, would be undergoing his
examination,--badgered, bullied, cross-examined, threatened, matching
his dull and unaccustomed wits against the keener, trained, and
experienced ones of the judge, outmatched at every point, and but too
frequently failing to demonstrate his innocence which it should have
been as much the care of his examiner as his own to demonstrate.
[Illustration: SENTRY OF THE GARDE RÉPUBLICAINE BEFORE THE OPERA-HOUSE.