Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/257

 to swell their treasuries with the inconsiderable wreck of an unfortunate family. In countries where the Roman law is established, confiscation is not admitted, except within the jurisdiction of the parliament of Toulouse. It was formerly the law at Calais, but was abolished by the English, whilst that city was in their possession. It is strange, that the inhabitants of the capital should be subject to a severer law than the people in the country: but laws, like the cottages in a village, were generally established by accident, and without attention to the regularity of a general plan. Who would believe that, in the year 1673, in the most brilliant period of the kingdom of France, the advocate-general, Omer Talon, did in full parliament express himself, on the subject of a young lady named Canillac, in the following words: “God says, in the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy, If thou comest into a city where idolatry reigneth, thou shalt surely smite