Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/617

 "Yes: emptied it, and put it on me again."

The prisoner is examined; says he was restless, and couldn't sleep.

"My francs kept you awake," says prosecutor, indignant.

"No! your fleas did," retorts the prisoner.

Then prisoner, grandiloquent in the midst of misfortune—what Frenchman is not?—proceeds to address the gentlemen of the jury in his defence: "Gentlemen, you see me here; but if I had not come here till I deserved it, I should be walking the streets at this moment, breathing the free air of heaven. Monsieur, this false young man says I have stolen from him. Grand Dieu! Am I then a patent boot-jack? I ask Monsieur the Judge; could I take off your boots, and put them on again, while you were asleep in bed?" (Sensation.)

"But, unhappy me, voyez-vous, I was drunk," responds prosecutor. "I slept so sound that 1 strained the ropes of my bed."

"Monsieur, you should blush to accuse me. Your money is the coinage of a wine-heated brain, Gentlemen, I have served in the National Guard Mobile; had I been capable of subtracting filthy francs from the boots of a fellow-creature, should I not have been drummed out?"

But prisoner is deemed guilty.

"Monsieur the Judge, a little word."

"Well."

"Do with me as you please; I am equal to either fortune."

Not the least interesting are the political trials; these are constantly occurring, owing to the invincible pugnacity of French journalists and the fondness which French editors have for martyrdom, though it be but on a small scale. St. Pélagie is never without guests who boast themselves "knights of the quill;" and although these persecuted gentlemen are usually "dynastic opposers," once in a while we find the too-hot adherents of the empire—Granier de Cassagnac, for instance—incarcerated with the rest. It requires no very subtle insight into the Imperial Constitution to see that the courts are wholly under the political influence of Monsieur the Minister of the Interior, who, being irresponsible, nods or shakes his head after Monseigneur the Emperor. Although the trials for political offences seldom miscarry, and although—what fatally hurts your ordinary drama—their dénouement is clearly foreseen at the outset, the scenes in court are rendered piquant by the accused themselves, who, knowing there is no help for them, give full rein to their wit and satire, in spite of judge, minister, or majesty. Perhaps the trials for political offences which take place in the remote provinces, far from Paris, are the most interesting. Before the right of public meeting had been extended to its present state—and even now it is so hedged about as to appear to the Anglo-Saxon looker-on a mere phantom right after all—the political passions of the people, and the political propagandism of the Opposition chiefs, were wont to find an outlet by means of these very political trials. Jules Favre, and Thiers, and Berryer, could not, without infringing the law, address their adherents assembled in public squares or in popular halls, on the political issues of the day; so they simply did it in the face of the Imperial judges, and protected by the privileges which in France, as elsewhere, belong to the lawyer's robe. This mode of propagating ideas hostile to the empire was, and still is, a formidable one. A provincial editor writes a slashing article, saying that "Solferino was won in spite of bad generalship" (allusive to the Emperor's part therein); or that "the republic was assassinated by the existing powers." He is forthwith indicted by the Procureur Impérial for "exciting to hatred and contempt of the government," or "an assault upon the person of his Majesty." The editor expected this, and is rejoiced to receive the summons to appear in court. He forthwith sends to M. Jules Favre, the modern Mirabeau, engages him as counsel, and announces in his columns that the great democratic advocate is to defend him. When the day comes, great crowds of people surround the court-house, and there is no preventing them from pushing through the corridors, and filling the court-room to its utmost capacity. When the advocate arrives, and descends from his carriage, the outside crowd greet him with cries of "Vive Jules Favre!" "Vive la liberté!" "A bas la tyrannie!" to all of which the deputy blandly smiles, and bows this way and that. His progress to the court-room is a continued ovation. The case comes on for trial: Monsieur the Procureur has unfolded it with dramatic force; the testimony is given on one side and the other; the counsel for the prosecution "orates and gyrates;" then it is the turn of M. Favre to develop his defence. The crowd hangs on his lips breathlessly; M. the Procureur, and even M. the Judge, are slightly nervous; the orator raises his voice. His speech is simply and purely a political harangue, a terrible arraignment of the empire, and a general indictment against its career. Neither he nor his client cares a rush how the case goes, nor what the damages are; they are already victorious, for they have won the right to be publicly heard, unrestricted. An audience, sympathetic and enthusiastic in the highest degree, listens; the mouths of judge and prosecutor are stopped; the orator, forgetful of his case, inculcates his favourite doctrines unrestrained. If the judge, finding the harangue a little too strong, interrupt, he is met by a scathing retort, which, if he be not a very uncommon magistrate indeed, effectually teaches him not to interfere again. The editor is convicted, pays a fine (which a zealous party subscription speedily makes up), or goes to prison for a month or two; where he has the double satisfaction of being a martyr, and of complacently reflecting, that he has done more for his cause than a hundred perfectly lawful leaders could have done. It is well known that Berryer, up to his death, used to, and that Favre still does, make a regular progress through