A judge, who had long represented the folly of this method of trial, without any success, had recourse to the following stratagem:--He went into the stable at night, and having taken away two of his own horses, he had them removed to distance. In the morning his coachman came trembling to inform him of the theft. He immediately had him confined. He was put to the torture, and, unable to bear the agony, he said that he had stolen the horses. The judge immediately wrote to the King, and informed him, that he himself had removed the horses. The man was pardoned, and the judge settled a large pension on him. The subject of the torture was considered, and the result was its abolition.
I found that the opinions as to some parts of their criminal jurisprudence in France, were the same as are entertained on the same subject in England. Mr L. B., who has had occasion professionally to attend many criminal trials, is of opinion, that in this country, terrible punishments ought to be avoided, or at least performed in private. It is generally thought, that the horror of these punishments deters the robber and murderer, and has a good effect on the multitude; but I am afraid, said Mr L. B., that the multitude compassionate the sufferer, and think the laws unjust: and experience shews, that punishments, however horrid, do not deter the _hardened_ criminal. My father, said he, filled the situation of judge in his native city. A very young man, son of his baker, was convicted before the court, and condemned to die, for robbery with murder. After sentence, my father visited him, and asked him how he had been led to commit such a crime? Since I was a child, said the boy, I have always been a thief. When at school, I stole from my school-fellows,--when brought home, I stole from my father and mother. I have long wished to rob on the high-way; the fear of death did not prevent me. The worst kind of death is the rack, but by going to see every execution, I have learnt to laugh even at the rack. When young, it alarmed me, but habit has done away its terrors.
Mr L. B. is certainly a man of gentlemanly manners, and of much general information. He is received at Aix in the first society of the old nobility; and was, I afterwards found, reckoned a model of good breeding, and yet, (which, in the present condition of French manners, is by no means uncommon), I have frequently witnessed him, in general company, introducing topics, and employing expressions, which, in our country, would not have been tolerated for a moment, but must have been considered an outrage to the established forms of good breeding.