I am convinced, Monsieur le Comte, if you were plenipotentiary here, you would never affix your name to an act which not even the most protracted and most disastrous war would justify.
NOTE OF M. COLMACHE.—The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Count Sebastiani) made no reply to the above severe, but just comments on the unworthy proposition which Count Flahaut had undertaken to communicate to the French embassy.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TRIAL OF PEERS BY THE CHAMBER OF PEERS, AND THE REASONS ON WHICH TALLEYRAND GROUNDED HIS VOTE IN THE AFFAIR OF LIEUTENANTS-GENERAL GUILLEMINOT AND BORDESOULLE.
Our political laws have existed only during the space of a few years. We have witnessed their creation and their birth. As yet they are scarcely anything more than theories. Time alone will convert them into practical laws. In other words, we possess laws, but we do not yet possess jurisprudence.
Amidst all the uncertainties necessarily arising out of such a state of things, it has appeared to me that my duty, as a Peer of France, was to seek, in reflection, for that light and knowledge which experience cannot afford. The following chain of ideas has aided me in the accomplishment of this duty.
The first question I put to myself was, What is the Court of Peers? The answer is, An extraordinary tribunal, instituted by the Charter, for judging certain affairs which that Charter has withdrawn from the ordinary tribunals, either on account of the serious nature of the crimes, or by reason of the rank of the individuals accused. Such, it appears to me, are the meaning and the spirit of Articles 33 and 34 of our fundamental law.
Is this a wise institution? Is it beneficial to the country? I would answer in the affirmative. But these points are not for me to determine. The Charter has decreed, and that is sufficient.
Now, in what does this extraordinary tribunal resemble the ordinary tribunals? Can it be tied down to the same forms of procedure? I find that the law—the faithful guardian of the interests of society, whilst it declares that crime must not escape punishment, is, nevertheless, more watchful in protecting the innocent than in punishing the guilty. It has therefore wisely established hierarchical degrees in the judiciary organization. It separates the accusation from the judgment, and even after judgment the condemned is empowered to appeal for its annulment, if, in the long course of proceedings, a single one of the prescribed tutelary forms shall have been violated or disavowed.