ng to entertain you with any sentimental lamentations for
this scoundrel's fate, or to declare my belief in his innocence, as
Monsieur de Balzac has done. As far as moral conviction can go, the
man's guilt is pretty clearly brought home to him. But any man who
has read the "Causes Celebres," knows that men have been convicted
and executed upon evidence ten times more powerful than that which was
brought against Peytel. His own account of his horrible case may be
true; there is nothing adduced in the evidence which is strong enough to
overthrow it. It is a serious privilege, God knows, that society
takes upon itself, at any time, to deprive one of God's creatures of
existence. But when the slightest doubt remains, what a tremendous risk
does it incur! In England, thank heaven, the law is more wise and more
merciful: an English jury would never have taken a man's blood upon such
testimony: an English judge and Crown advocate would never have acted
as these Frenchmen have done; the latter inflaming the public mind by
exaggerated appeals to their passions: the former seeking, in every way,
to draw confessions from the prisoner, to perplex and confound him, to
do away, by fierce cross-questioning and bitter remarks from the bench,
with any effect that his testimony might have on the jury. I don't mean
to say that judges and lawyers have been more violent and inquisitorial
against the unhappy Peytel than against any one else; it is the fashion
of the country: a man is guilty until he proves himself to be innocent;
and to batter down his defence, if he have any, there are the lawyers,
with all their horrible ingenuity, and their captivating passionate
eloquence. It is hard thus to set the skilful and tried champions of the
law against men unused to this kind of combat; nay, give a man all the
legal aid that he can purchase or procure, still, by this plan, you take
him at a cruel, unmanly disadvantage; he has to fight against the law,
clogged with the dreadful weight of his presupposed guilt. Thank God
that, in England, things are not managed so.

However, I am not about to entertain you with ignorant disquisitions
about the law. Peytel's case may, nevertheless, interest you; for the
tale is a very stirring and mysterious one; and you may see how easy
a thing it is for a man's life to be talked away in France, if ever he
should happen to fall under the suspicion of a crime. The French "Acte
d'accusation" begins in the following