Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/615

 of our attorneys and solicitors-general. At the opening of criminal trials, the procureur proceeds to read a long and minute narrative of the previous life, habits, and character of the accused, which has been collected with great care. He relates the career of the prisoner with a dramatic force worthy of a novelist, and seems as anxious to construct an interesting story as to produce a practical impression on the minds of the jury. The theatrical character of the scene is kept up by the French custom of questioning the prisoner as well as the witnesses, hearing his statements, allowing him to interrogate the witnesses, or to explain away their evidence, and not very sternly checking him when he indulges in pathetic appeals, in untimely jokes, or energetic recriminations. The judge for his part makes remarks very freely, does not stick at a pun or a joke with the counsel, or even with the prisoner, and engages in altercations with both.

The French are so sensitive to anything droll; they are so quick to seize the ludicrous aspect of any matter and make the most of it, that no opportunity for amusement is allowed to pass, no matter how serious the trial or the circumstances. Some two years ago a trial took place at Melun, near Fontainebleau, which excited a keen interest throughout France. One Madame Frigard, a sprightly woman of forty, the mother of a family, was arraigned for the murder of a Madame Mertens. The two were very intimate friends. Mertens was young, pretty, of loose morals, and possessed of money; they went for a day's excursion into the forest of Fontainebleau. Frigard returned to Paris in the evening alone; for some time the friends of Mertens were puzzled to know what had become of her. In a week her body was found lying in the depths of the forest. Meanwhile Frigard was found in possession of some funds belonging to her friend. The greatest excitement prevailed during the trial of Frigard for her life. But the gravity which might be expected in a murder trial was wholly wanting; to read the reports in the newspapers, you would have thought that a comedy was being enacted in the snug Melun Palais de Justice. The spectators were kept in continual high spirits by the witty sallies of the judge and the lawyers, and the bright naïve responses of the fair accused. Her repartees were greeted with roars of applause and laughter; and some of the dialogues which took place might have made Feuillet envious, and furnished Sardou with a stock of fresh piquancy and wit. The trial ended in the conviction of Frigard, and her condemnation to hard labour for life; yet on hearing the sentence she tossed her head, said something pertly humorous to the judge as she left the dock, and went smiling and flippant to her doom.

The smaller courts in the towns, where lighter every-day offences are tried, are usually the most interesting to the foreign visitor. These courts are usually situated either in the basement of the Palais de Justice, or in some obscure street. You are free to enter, and find yourself in a small, close, not sweet smelling room. You take up your position, standing, behind some railings—for spectators are seldom accorded the privilege of seats. At a square raised desk, over which appears the Imperial escutcheon, is seated the presiding judge. He wears a long puffy gown of silk, with a broad white cravat, while his head is adorned by a singular hat, large and square, broader at the top than at the bottom, and lined—as well as you can see—with some lace, not of the finest. On the judge's right is another smaller raised desk, at right angles with that of the judge; this is the place occupied by the procureur. Below the judge are the clerks, and in a semicircle in front of the clerks sit the avocats, avoués, and notaries the barristers and attorneys. The prisoner is placed on a chair in a small enclosed space, his counsel sitting by him; the jury is at the side, seated on long narrow benches. There is a witness-stand near the judge, as in England.

The judge takes his seat, the court is formally opened, and the witnesses and prisoners are called in. The first prisoner put into the dock is a pretty, lively, flashily-dressed, saucy-looking grisette. She takes her place with a little shrug of the shoulders and a grimace, and looks about coquettishly. The judge eyes her sharply for a moment, and then asks what she is charged with. "Mademoiselle, Monsieur le Juge, is charged with stealing a fifty-franc note from her most intimate and confidential friend." Information as to mademoiselle's antecedents and position is at once forthcoming. Mademoiselle's name is Adrienne Petitbouche; she trims bonnets for the great Madame Picot by day; she flirts with her mignon Jacques by twilight; she literally "shakes a foot," and a lithe little body too, every night at the Bal de la Terpsichore Divine—admission, one franc. On the whole, barring her daily task, she has a very careless, merry, wicked, delirious life of it. Her money melts like snow in a furnace; she often finds herself minus the cash for a new dancing-skirt, and, unhappily, Jacques is too poor to supply it. She, therefore, quietly slips into her darling Philomène's room opposite to her own, and quietly abstracts the fifty-franc note which Philomène has just received as her monthly wages, and has stowed away in her trunk. Philomène catches her coming out of the door, misses her fifty francs, and has dear Adrienne brought up before the court.

Philomène is the first witness, and skips to the witness-box, brisk, prompt, and pert. Questioned indiscriminately by judge, jury, procureur, counsel, and prisoner, she answers smartly, with tosses of the head. She says she saw Mademoiselle Adrienne coming out of the room; her trunk was open; on the floor near it was Mademoiselle Adrienne's new silver thimble. Here the prisoner breaks in:

"Yes, the hussy borrowed it of me the day before yesterday."

"It's a lie! I didn't—you know I didn't!"

"Monsieur the Judge" "Now, hush, hush, hush!" (from the judge). "Go on, witness."