The poor _prévenu_ draws favorable auguries from this solemn
deliberation. But his hopes are generally dashed; the court, usually,
retires into the Chambre du Conseil only to correct the law, while
affirming the decree, of the lower court. The president re-enters, the
_dossier_ of the case under his arm, and followed by his six
counsellors; he proceeds to read the decision of the court, setting
forth that, while the reasonings of the lower court are entirely
erroneous, its conclusions are, nevertheless, irrefutable. Sometimes,
however, this court, called the "Chamber of Bishops" by Henri Rochefort,
demonstrates its judicial independence by overturning the decisions
brought before it, even though they may be sustained by the popular
verdict,--as it did in the case of M. Wilson.
The jury system of France resembles, in a general way, in its alleged
safeguarding of the public liberties, and in its injustices,
inequalities, and obstinate bringing to the service of Themis the
uncertain aid of Chance and of Prejudice, that of the United States.
Each year, in each canton of France, these generally unwilling aids in
the administration of justice are selected among the respectable
citizens by a council composed of Maires, Juges de Paix, and Conseillers
généraux. Their names, forwarded to the central judicial authority, are
subjected to a second revision, by a commission sitting in the chief
town or the capital. In this manner is obtained the "general list of the
jury;" from this is drawn by lot, every three months, and in Paris every
fortnight, the jury of each criminal session, composed of thirty-six
titular jurors and four supplementary. All citizens, having the required
qualifications, between the ages of thirty and seventy, are obliged to
serve, under a penalty of five hundred francs. The juror receives a very
small sum for travelling expenses if the court is at a distance from his
residence, but nothing at all if it be in his neighborhood.
Consequently, these arbitrary summonses in the name of Justice are
viewed, generally, with as much disfavor by the recipients thereof as in
other countries, with the exception of the members of some such leisure
class as retired officers on half-pay. The tendencies of certain classes
of jurors are well recognized, the law and the evidence being as they
may;--thus, before a jury of peasants and farmers, the young girls
guilty of infanticide are nearly always acquitted, the rural economy
entertaining a natural aversion to illegitimate children, reared at the
public cost to become vagabonds at the age of fifteen. On the contrary,
incendiaries, counterfeiters, and those accused of assaults upon young
children in the fields, receive no mercy at the hands of these honest
countrymen. The severity of the juries of Versailles is well known.
Composed of market-gardeners, ex-officers, and retired shopkeepers and
employés, living in small cottages in the suburbs, and exposed night and
day to the incursions of the Parisian marauders, they give always to the
prosecution the verdict which it demands, and sometimes even more. There
was a case, a few years ago, of three young rascals who set out from
Paris to assassinate an old innkeeper of Argenteuil; the Ministère
Public claimed one of them for the guillotine, but the Versailles jury
gave him all three.
As to the Parisian jury, its composition is naturally more complex, but
its results are said to be equally unreliable. Its deliberations are not
affected by any spirit of caste or class, since these distinctions are
not sharply enough defined; "but it is at the mercy of a fine talker.
This will not be the avocat, rarely listened to, nor even the Avocat
général, offensive in the eyes of the Parisian _frondeur_ as the
representative of authority. No; it is among its own members that the
jury will select this veritable chief, some reasoner with abundant and
facile speech, discovering in everything concealed meanings, hidden
allusions, and all the more dangerous for the good sense of his
colleagues that he has an elegant talent for paradoxes."
The Parisian jury is also, it appears, peculiarly under the influence of
the fashions and customs of the day, no matter what they may be. For
several years it was almost impossible to secure a verdict of conviction
in the so-called "passionate dramas;" the heroines of vitriol and the
revolver passed with impunity before these complaisant juries. The
Parquet was obliged to withdraw most of these cases from trial by jury
and send them to one of the Chambres of the Tribunal Correctionnel,
which did not fail to do them justice. The notoriety, the celebrity, of
a case have also a great effect upon these citizen jurors. If a crime
has been committed on some fête-day, or in the midst of a ministerial
crisis, the twelve jurors take into favorable consideration all the
extenuating circumstances and render a verdict of acquittal. If, on the
contrary, the crime has attracted much popular attention, been exploited
in the daily papers, with portraits of the accused, of his victim, etc.,
then is the condemnation to death inevitable. "The Parisian jury is
nothing but a great child whom it is necessary to keep in
leading-strings and to watch very closely."
One of the most picturesque and characteristic features in the train of
justice, one in which the French themselves have always taken a lively,
though a professedly disparaging, interest,--as befits a military
nation,--is the black-robed multitude of _avocats_, the attorneys, the
lawyers. The nature of their profession, their professional costumes,
certain peculiarities of whisker and absence of moustache, all those
qualities which, in all countries, offer cheap handles to easy wit at
the expense of the members of this judicial order, all these unite to
lend them an interest, of various kinds, as a class somewhat apart.
Their intelligent, shrewd, generally unimaginative heads, under their
cylindrical black caps, offer endless studies to the physiognomists and
the caricaturists. Their services are indispensable for all those who
seek the aid of the law. At Paris, the avocats alone have the right to
plead for litigants, before all the Cours d'Appel and the Tribunaux
Civils. They can also plead before the military, commercial, and
administrative tribunals and the Conseils de Prud'hommes. The only
exceptions are the Conseil d'État and the Cour de Cassation.
The Ordre des Avocats, with its monopoly of this privilege, claims to
date back to the year 518 A.D., and to have had for sponsor an uncle of
the Emperor Justinian. It was restored by Charlemagne and continued
under various names: _Causidici_, _Avantparliers_, _Plaidoux_, and
_Chevaliers de la loi_, and was constituted the Ordre des Avocats in the
time of Saint-Louis to distinguish it from the various confraternities
of artisans which were then being organized. A decree of the Assemblée
Constituante dated September 2, 1790, announced that "the men of the
law, formerly called _avocats_, shall not form any order or corporation,
nor shall they wear any peculiar costume in the exercise of their
functions." This eclipse, however, was not of long duration. The former
avocats had drawn up a list of the recognized members of their
profession in good standing, this list became the official one, and the
roll of the Ordre des Avocats was reconstituted by the law of the 22d
Ventôse, year XII, reorganizing the law schools, the Écoles de Droit.
By the word _avocat_ is designated those lawyers who, after having
obtained the title of Licencié en Droit, have taken the professional
oath before a Cour d'Appel. But, in order to be able to plead, they are
required, in addition, to be admitted to the bar of the tribunal or the
court. The Avocats-Consultants are those who, not having been
admitted to the bar, cannot plead in the courts, but give legal
consultations in their offices. The _Avoués_, attorneys, are appointed
by the court or tribunal to represent the litigants before it. They
cannot be avocats, and are obliged to be residents of Paris.
[Illustration: PUPILS OF THE ÉCOLE SPÉCIALS MILITAIRE DE SAINT-CYR.
Engraved, from a photograph, by E Tilly.]
Among the multitude of attendants and habitués of the judicial tribunals
are the necessary witnesses and experts, of all kinds in degree,--the
_témoin à charge_, important witness, listened to with attention; the
_témoin à décharge_, uncertain and ill at ease; the _expert-comptable_,
very conscientious; the _expert en écriture_, in handwriting, very
positive and authoritative and unreliable, after the manner of his kind;
the experts in medicine, in mental ailments, in physics, etc. The
various degrees of willingness and unwillingness on the part of those
who receive these official _assignations à témoin_ are much as in other
climes.
After the summer vacation, the opening of the courts is preceded by an
annual divine service, the _messe rouge_ [the red mass], held in the
Sainte-Chapelle and attended by all the magistrates in their robes of
office, red, black, and ermine. In 1898, this ceremony took place on
October 17th, and was presided over by Cardinal Richard, Archbishop of
Paris. The mass was celebrated by Canon Pousset, of the cathedral of
Notre-Dame. After the service, the magistrates return to their courts in
hieratic procession, following each other strictly in the order of their
rank, the walls of the passage-ways being hung, for the occasion, with
Gobelins tapestry.
A similar ceremony has been introduced in London. For the second time,
in this same month of October, 1898, the legal year was inaugurated by a
religious service celebrated with great pomp at Westminster. The Lord
Chancellor, the judges, the Queen's Counsel, and a great number of
representatives of the bar were present at this _messe rouge_ English
and Anglican. The Catholic judges and lawyers have long been in the
habit of attending a similar service on this occasion in one of their
own churches.
[Illustration: OBVERSE.