rom interpreting, the law. That is to say, the
judges should be forbidden to legislate. Third, the judges should be
brought into harmony with public opinion by permitting the people to
participate in their appointment. Fourth, the tendency toward rigor in
criminal cases, which had become a scandal under the old regime, should
be tempered by the introduction of the jury. Bergasse proposed that
judicial appointments should be made by the executive from among three
candidates selected by the provincial assemblies. After long and very
remarkable debates the plan was, in substance, adopted in May, 1790,
except that the Assembly decided, by a majority of 503 to 450, that the
judges should be elected by the people for a term of six years, without
executive interference. In the debate Cazales represented the
conservatives, Mirabeau the liberals. The vote was a test vote and shows
how strong the conservatives were in the Assembly up to the
reorganization of the Clergy in July, 1790, and the electoral assemblies
of the districts, which selected the judges, seem, on the whole, to have
been rather more conservative than the Assembly. In the election not a
sixth of those who were enfranchised voted for the delegates who, in
turn, chose the judges, and these delegates were usually either eminent
lawyers themselves, or wealthy merchants, or men of letters. The result
was a bench not differing much from an old parliament, and equally
incapable of understanding the convulsion about them.

Installed early in 1791, not a year elapsed before these magistrates
became as ill at ease as had been those whom they displaced, and in
March, 1792, Jean Debry formally demanded their recall, although their
terms properly were to expire in 1796. During the summer of 1792 they
sank into contempt and, after the massacres, the Legislative Assembly,
just before its dissolution, provided for a new constituency for the
judicial elections. This they degraded so far that, out of fifty-one
magistrates to be chosen in Paris, only twelve were professionally
trained. Nor did the new courts inspire respect. After the 10th of
August one or two special tribunals were organized to try the Swiss
Guard who surrendered in the Palace, and other political offenders, but
these proved to be so ineffective that Marat thrust them aside, and
substituted for them his gangs of murderers. No true and permanent
political court was evolved before Danton had to deal with the treason