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only paid witnesses. There is no discredit in that, as we recognize to-day in the employment of experts in civil and criminal cases. But the champions were not ex perts : they were professional witnesses who were hired to testify to matters false or true — it made no difference to them,— and, if their testimony was impeached, to defend it by mortal combat. For three hundred years this practice prevailed, and trials were often decided upon the Napoleonic maxim that God is on the side of the heaviest battalions. Plaintiff or defendant produced a trucu lent bravo, who swore to the untruth, the whole untruth, and nothing else, while he glared upon the opposing party. Efforts were made to suppress this practice and to limit the effect of the testimony thus given. Edward I. of England, by the I. Statute of Westminster, required that in a suit involv ing title to real estate the witness must swear that he had been present when the alleged possession of the land was given, or that his father, when dying, had enjoined him by his filial duty to maintain his prin cipal's title as if he had been present. A professional champion was not ac cepted as a witness in causes in which he was not employed, and severe penalties were imposed in case he was vanquished in a judicial duel. In most cases he was hanged. In the least event, he lost a hand or foot. Seignor Beaumanoir, who wrote a treatise on this subject in the latter part of the thirteenth century, states as a suffi cient reason for these severe penalties, that they were intended to prevent the profes sional perjurers, who had been hired to give testimony in behalf of A., from being bought off by B., and purposely losing the fight. The prospect of death or mutilation was an incentive to do their best when it came to blows.

A woman condemned to death had the right of appeal to Wager of Battle, if she could obtain a champion who would imperil his life for her. Our readers will recall the splendidly dramatic episode in Ivanhoe, when Rebecca, accused of sorcery, had a few hours given her in which to find a champion, and sits at the foot of the stake whereat she is to be burned, while the weak and wounded knight is coming to her rescue. This right of appeal from words to blows existed in Germany until the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in France until the middle part of that century, when it was abolished in consequence of a tragedy which is known to us — so strange are the curios ities of history — principally by the fact that the victor in the judicial duel won by a sword stroke which was thenceforth called "le coup de Jamac." The combatants were two noblemen of high rank, and the duel was fought in the presence of Henry II. and a vast concourse of the nobility and the commonalty of France, at Saint Germain-en-Laye near Paris, July io, 1547. This duel is memorable, not only because it was the last case of Wager of Battle in France, but because the duellists were bosom friends, who were forced into the quarrel by the intrigues of two women, and by the mean and treacherous nature of the King, who presided at the combat, and whose father, Francis I., had refused to permit it. Some preliminary account is necessary to explain the matter. In the last years of the reign of Francis I. two ladies of the court had supreme influ ence. One was the Duchesse d'Estampes, who was strict in her notions of propriety, as the times were; the other was Diane de Poictiers, who was the mistress of the Dauphin Henry, who afterwards became King Henry II. These ladies were rivals, and their