ore the west facade
of the Cathedral, and was then beheaded in the Vieux Marche. His goods
and property had, as a matter of course, been confiscated by the
State. His destitute orphans went to live with their grandfather, who
soon died of grief. The terrible spectacle then followed of this old
man's daughter trying to drive the children out of the house, because
they could inherit nothing from a murderer. "Aulcun" ran the law, "qui
soit engendre de _sang damne_ ne peut avoir, comme hoir, aulcune
succession d'heritage." Against this clear decree the magistrates were
powerless to help the orphans, indignant as they were at the
inhumanity of their aunt. But the children appealed to the Higher
Court. A brilliant advocate, Bretignieres by name, had decided to
oppose the "Coutumier" on their behalf, and the mass of people who had
thronged the Parvis to see the father punished now crowded the Palais
de Justice to see the children saved.

The Court assembled more slowly to hear his arguments, with the
President St. Anthot at their head, a strong, wise, and enlightened
man, after Bretignieres' own heart. The advocate waited for the
supporter of the law to open his case. The precedents went back to
Ogier the Dane, to Ragnar, to Rollo the founder of the town itself,
who strove to put down the crime of murder by extending the punishment
beyond the criminal himself to his descendants, and thus appealing to
the paternal instincts of the rough warriors they had to rule.

Bretignieres rose suddenly from his seat, crying that in Normandy
alone was this inhuman decree allowed, that Rome herself had never
dared to stain the statute book with such a penalty. The extension of
the punishment to the children, far from proving a deterrent, actually
encouraged these hopeless and destitute orphans to exist by crime,
since every avenue of honest livelihood was barred to them. Deprived
of all their father had possessed, they saw their relations in the
enjoyment of an increased inheritance. Ruined by punishment for a
crime in which they had had no share, they saw the prosperity of
others increased by the operations of an unjust law, a law that might
have served the turn of a more barbarous people, but which was now far
more the relic of an ancient ignorance than a symbol of modern
enlightenment. In an age when the judicial combat of the old code had
been abolished with the trial by fire, the changing customs and
growing ideas of the people in the