he
police detains them pending the convenience of the public prosecutor and
the examining judge. They, being served with due notice, more or less
quickly, according to the gravity of the case, come and examine the
prisoners who are still provisionally detained. Having due regard to
the presumptive evidence, the examining judge then issues a warrant for
their imprisonment, and sends the suspected persons to be confined in
a jail. There are three such jails (Maisons d'Arret) in
Paris--Sainte-Pelagie, La Force, and les Madelonettes.

Observe the word inculpe, incriminated, or suspected of crime. The
French Code has created three essential degrees of criminality--inculpe,
first degree of suspicion; prevenu, under examination; accuse, fully
committed for trial. So long as the warrant for committal remains
unsigned, the supposed criminal is regarded as merely under suspicion,
inculpe of the crime or felony; when the warrant has been issued, he
becomes "the accused" (prevenu), and is regarded as such so long as the
inquiry is proceeding; when the inquiry is closed, and as soon as the
Court has decided that the accused is to be committed for trial, he
becomes "the prisoner at the bar" (accuse) as soon as the superior
court, at the instance of the public prosecutor, has pronounced that the
charge is so far proved as to be carried to the Assizes.

Thus, persons suspected of crime go through three different stages,
three siftings, before coming up for trial before the judges of the
upper Court--the High Justice of the realm.

At the first stage, innocent persons have abundant means of exculpating
themselves--the public, the town watch, the police. At the second state
they appear before a magistrate face to face with the witnesses, and
are judged by a tribunal in Paris, or by the Collective Court of the
departments. At the third stage they are brought before a bench of
twelve councillors, and in case of any error or informality the prisoner
committed for trial at the Assizes may appeal for protection to the
Supreme court. The jury do not know what a slap in the face they give
to popular authority, to administrative and judicial functionaries, when
they acquit a prisoner. And so, in my opinion, it is hardly possible
that an innocent man should ever find himself at the bar of an Assize
Court in Paris--I say nothing of other seats of justice.

The detenu is the convict. French criminal law recognizes imprisonment
of three degrees,