who the condemned man is?" Monsieur de Granville went on.
"A young man of seven-and-twenty--as handsome as he who killed himself
yesterday, and as fair; condemned against all our anticipations, for the
only proof against him was his concealment of the stolen goods. Though
sentenced, the lad will confess nothing! For seventy days he has held
out against every test, constantly declaring that he is innocent. For
two months I have felt two heads on my shoulders! I would give a year of
my life if he would confess, for juries need encouragement; and imagine
what a blow it would be to justice if some day it should be discovered
that the crime for which he is punished was committed by another.

"In Paris everything is so terribly important; the most trivial
incidents in the law courts have political consequences.

"The jury, an institution regarded by the legislators of the Revolution
as a source of strength, is, in fact, an instrument of social ruin, for
it fails in action; it does not sufficiently protect society. The jury
trifles with its functions. The class of jurymen is divided into
two parties, one averse to capital punishment; the result is a total
upheaval of true equality in administration of the law. Parricide, a
most horrible crime, is in some departments treated with leniency, while
in others a common murder, so to speak, is punished with death. [There
are in penal servitude twenty-three parricides who have been allowed the
benefit of _extenuating circumstances_.] And what would happen if here
in Paris, in our home district, an innocent man should be executed!"

"He is an escaped convict," said Monsieur Camusot, diffidently.

"The Opposition and the Press would make him a paschal lamb!" cried
Monsieur de Granville; "and the Opposition would enjoy white-washing
him, for he is a fanatical Corsican, full of his native notions, and his
murders were a _Vendetta_. In that island you may kill your enemy, and
think yourself, and be thought, a very good man.

"A thorough-paced magistrate, I tell you, is an unhappy man. They ought
to live apart from all society, like the pontiffs of old. The world
should never see them but at fixed hours, leaving their cells, grave,
and old, and venerable, passing sentence like the high priests of
antiquity, who combined in their person the functions of judicial and
sacerdotal authority. We should be accessible only in our high seat.--As
it is, we are to be seen every day, amused or unha