eding body of the domestic was likewise brought from the road, where
it lay; and Peytel, asked to explain the circumstance, did so."....

Now, as there is little reason to tell the reader, when an English
counsel has to prosecute a prisoner on the part of the Crown for a
capital offence, he produces the articles of his accusation in the most
moderate terms, and especially warns the jury to give the accused person
the benefit of every possible doubt that the evidence may give, or may
leave. See how these things are managed in France, and how differently
the French counsel for the Crown sets about his work.

He first prepares his act of accusation, the opening of which we
have just read; it is published six days before the trial, so that an
unimpassioned, unprejudiced jury has ample time to study it, and to
form its opinions accordingly, and to go into court with a happy, just
prepossession against the prisoner.

Read the first part of the Peytel act of accusation; it is as turgid and
declamatory as a bad romance; and as inflated as a newspaper document,
by an unlimited penny-a-liner:--"The department of the Ain is in a
dreadful state of excitement; the inhabitants of Belley come trooping
from their beds,--and what a sight do they behold;--a young woman at
the bottom of a carriage, toute ruisselante, just out of a river; her
garments, in spite of the cold and rain, raised, so as to leave the
upper part of her knees entirely exposed, at which all the beholders
were affected, and cried, that the FIRST DUTY was to cover her from
the cold." This settles the case at once; the first duty of a man is
to cover the legs of the sufferer; the second to call for help. The
eloquent "Substitut du Procureur du Roi" has prejudged the case, in the
course of a few sentences. He is putting his readers, among whom his
future jury is to be found, into a proper state of mind; he works on
them with pathetic description, just as a romance-writer would: the
rain pours in torrents; it is a dreary evening in November; the young
creature's situation is neatly described; the distrust which entered
into the breast of the keen old officer of gendarmes strongly painted,
the suspicions which might, or might not, have been entertained by
the inhabitants, eloquently argued. How did the advocate know that the
people had such? did all the bystanders say aloud, "I suspect that this
is a case of murder by Monsieur Peytel, and that his story about
the domesti