ly shown by French experience, and
it is here that French history is so illuminating to the American mind.
Before the Revolution France had semi-political courts which conduced to
the overthrow of Turgot, and, therefore, wrought for violence; but more
than this, France, under the old regime, had evolved a legal profession
of a cast of mind incompatible with an equal administration of the law.
The French courts were, therefore, when trouble came, supported only by
a faction, and were cast aside. With that the old regime fell.

The young Duke of Chartres, the son of Egalite Orleans, and the future
Louis Philippe, has related in his journal an anecdote which illustrates
that subtle poison of distrust which undermines all legal authority, the
moment that suspicion of political partiality in the judiciary enters
the popular mind. In June, 1791, the Duke went down from Paris to
Vendome to join the regiment of dragoons of which he had been
commissioned colonel. One day, soon after he joined, a messenger came to
him in haste to tell him that a mob had gathered near by who were about
to hang two priests. "I ran thither at once," wrote the Duke; "I spoke
to those who seemed most excited and impressed upon them how horrible it
was to hang men without trial; besides, to act as hangmen was to enter a
trade which they all thought infamous; that they had judges, and that
this was their affair. They answered that their judges were aristocrats,
and that they did not punish the guilty." That is to say, although the
priests were non-jurors, and, therefore, criminals in the eye of the
law, the courts would not enforce the law because of political bias.[43]
"It is your fault," I said to them, "since you elected them [the
judges], but that is no reason why you should do justice yourselves."

Danton explained in the Convention that it was because of the deep
distrust of the judiciary in the public mind, which this anecdote
shows, that the September massacres occurred, and it was because all
republicans knew that the state and the army were full of traitors like
Dumouriez, whom the ordinary courts would not punish, that Danton
brought forward his bill to organize a true political tribunal to deal
with them summarily. When Danton carried through this statute he
supposed himself to be at the apex of power and popularity, and to be
safe, if any man in France were safe. Very shortly he learned the error
In his calculation. Billaud was a member of