Page:United States Reports, Volume 24.djvu/291

Rh of John B. Chirac; which direction the Court accordingly gave.

The fifth exception related to the supposed variance between the writ and declaration, by the amendment, introducing the husband of Maria Bonfils as a party upon the record. The Court held the variance fatal under the general issue.

Mr. D. Hoffman, and Mr. Mayer, for the plaintiffs in error, argued, 1. That the rule as to professional secresy forbids disclosures by the counsel of matters communicated by the client, after the engagement of counsel, and relating to the merits, or grounds of prosecution or defence of the suit. But that the mere fact of the engagement of counsel was out of the rule, because the privilege and duty of being silent, does not arise until that fact be ascertained. The concealment of the real client, who may be the party essentially interested, may be part of the client’s policy, and be within the client’s instructions to his counsel. But the client’s injunction of secresy, per se, would not make secresy lawful in this respect; and it is, therefore, a petitio principii to say, that the counsel shall not tell who really employed him, merely because it happened to be the direction of his client, and his client’s view, to conceal the fact. The law would authorize a fraud on its own rules, if it would determine otherwise; and the pretension of the defendant is counter to the whole policy of the rule, as to professional se-