In the sixteenth century, subterranean dungeons had entirely disappeared in the country, thanks to the edict of Orléans which we have mentioned; but in most of the towns the prisoners continued still to be lodged in barred caverns in the depths of the fortifications, whence, every now and then, an epidemic disease came forth to devour the population. The rules remained nearly the same, except as regarded the jailers, whose office appears to have been looked upon by the law-makers with much jealousy. If a prisoner escaped through negligence on the part of the keepers, the jailer immediately took his place, and remained there, locked up with his own keys, to await the pleasure of the judge. His intercourse with the female captives was also strictly observed; and sometimes a simple intrigue, unattended by official persuasion, involved the punishment of death.

When the report of a crime was carried to the authorities, a warrant was first obtained, and then, on the answers of the accused, a precognition, or information, as it was called, taken on the localities of the deed. If the facts were slight, he retained his liberty, was allowed to employ an advocate, and was adjudged to be tried by ordinary process; but, if the evidence assumed a graver character as the plea proceeded, all this was overturned. He was shut up in prison, and deprived of a defender; the witnesses were examined and confronted in private; and the trial was now by extraordinary process.

In

every criminal trial there were (and are) two to one against the prisoner-the public party and the civil party. The former pleaded for punishment, the latter for damages. If a man is murdered, for instance, it is the duty and interest of the community to demand blood for blood; but this is no compensation to the widow or orphan deprived of the

services of the deceased: they must have money as well as revenge.

In the trial we have supposed, our accused is condemned by the inferior court. In many cases he might have bought off the civil party; and although the public party would have still prosecuted, it would have been with a diminished chance of conviction. He has neglected this, however, or found it impossible; he is condemned; and he appeals to the parliament.

If he now attempts a composition, the civil party will seldom be inflexible; for the parliament never confirms more than a fourth part of the sentences of the lower court. The civil party has yielded; and the trial returns at once to ordinary process. The witnesses are examined publicly; and the sentence is at length about to be pronounced. The accused kneels at the bar, if in Paris, loaded with irons -if in the cities beyond the Loire, confined with bands of stuff or linen, and is delared not guilty.

But, hold-we are mistaken, although only in one word, and that a very little one. Dele "not." He is guilty; he is on the scaffold; and the executioner respectfully demands a Salve or a Pater from the assembled crowd. All drop upon their kness, and nothing is heard but the murmur of their voices, till the hangman raises his arm to strike the fatal blow at the machinery, and—withdraws it again.

The friends of the delinquent, it seems, have been busy at court; they have obtained letters of grace from the king; and instead of fixing the rope round our friend's neck, they pass it under his shoulders, and give him a swing. The people laugh; but a thousand laughs are easier to endure than the more common sort of commutation of punishment, in which he would have been publicly scourged in the courtyard of the prison, with a cat-o'-nine tails tipped with lead.

At the same time, he would have liked better, no doubt, a free pardon, when he would have got clear off by simply kneeling before the judges while they were registering his letters of grace.

Even if, instigated by a bad conscience, or a dread of the lawyers, the delinquent had fled at the outset, the ends of public justice would not have been defeated. Another person would have been laid hold of in his stead, and scourged, hanged, or broken on the wheel, as the case might seem to deserve. This person, to be sure, would only have been a man of straw, covered with pasteboard, and marked and dressed so as to resemble the fugitive. Still a great moral lesson would have been taught, and that is every thing.

In the comparatively civilised period of the sixteenth century, the torture by fire was rarely used for eliciting the confession of criminals. When actually brought into practice, however, it consisted generally in the accused being bound down before a furnace, and the soles of his feet presented to the heat for a prescribed time. The cord, water, and wedges, were the usual engines of torture.

When the cord was in question, the accused was drawn up, by means of a pulley, by a rope fixed to his hands, joined behind his back, while a weight of a hundred pounds was suspended to his feet, also tied together. This was varied by drawing his hands and legs separately, in such a way as to require a surgeon to reduce the dislocations.

In the torture by water, the accused was drawn up by his arms joined above his head, while his feet, also fastened together, were made fast to the pavement. In this position, with his head hanging back, a horn was introduced into his mouth, from which water fell, drop by drop, into his throat. A gallon was usually ordered by the judge; but the un

happy sufferer seldom required more than a quart to induce him to confess everything and anything. This torture was sometimes applied in conjunction with that of the cord.

The other species of torture consisted in putting the legs of the accused each between two planks, binding them together with a cord, and then driving with a hammer as many wedges of wood between them as were necessary to extort confession.

The office of inspecting torturer, called the "Tourmenteur du roi, notre sire," it may be supposed, was a very important one. Independently of his salary, he made considerable benefit by selling to the wretches who came under the hands of his assistants certain recipes and nostrums for moderating the pain of the torture.

The form of criminal law in France having undergone, since this period, almost as many changes as ours in England, perhaps the reader will not be displeased to have thus had an opportunity of comparing the existing process with that of the sixteenth century.

THE LATIN COUNTRY.

FROM Central Paris, or the island of the Cité, we cross to the left bank of the river, where another city, altogether distinct in its history, manners, and even physical characteristics, demands our survey. Although without the aid of Turner in this chapter, we shall not permit ourselves to be tempted to describe objects so much better and minutely painted than we could do it in at least a dozen native guidebooks. We shall limit our task, as before, to touching slightly upon the distinctive features of the place, and to endeavouring to convey some general idea of those moral and historical associations which it ought to call up in the mind of the intellectual traveller.

The schools which Charlemagne, though ignorant of the mystery of the alphabetical signs himself, had attached to the monasteries, arose, in some cases, to considerable celebrity in the eleventh century. The episcopal school, in particular, was presided over by eminent professors; and among its pupils it included the children of the king himself, Louis VI. But there were other establishments, founded by private individuals, which owed all their fame to the learning and talents of the professor himself; and that of Abelard, in particular, attracted eventually to Paris, from almost all parts of Europe, such a multitude of students as exceeded the inhabitants in number.

The lover of Heloise was not only learned in all the little learning of the times, but he possessed that daring and