ally a penal law--is placed
beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch beside the work under
the artisan's hand. The right of the journalist is as sacred, as
necessary, as imprescriptible, as the right of the legislator.

What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is
dragged, on a certain morning, to one of our public squares. There he
finds the scaffold! He shudders, he struggles, he refuses to die. He is
young yet--only twenty-nine. Ah! I know what you will say,--"He is a
murderer!" But hear me. Two officers seize him. His hands, his feet are
tied. He throws off the two officers. A frightful struggle ensues. His
feet, bound as they are, become entangled in the ladder. He uses the
scaffold against the scaffold! The struggle is prolonged. Horror seizes
the crowd! The officers,--sweat and shame on their brows,--pale,
panting, terrified, despairing,--despairing with I know not what
horrible despair,--shrinking under that public reprobation which ought
to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive treatment, the
executioner,--the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the
scaffold and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn,--his shoulders
bloody,--still he resists. At length, after three-quarters of an hour
of this monstrous effort, of this spectacle without a name, of this
agony,--agony for all, be it understood,--agony for the assembled
spectators as well as for the condemned man,--after this age of anguish,
gentlemen of the jury, they take back the poor wretch to his prison.

The People breathe again. The People, naturally merciful, hope that
the man will be spared. But no,--the guillotine, though vanquished,
remains standing. There it frowns all day, in the midst of a sickened
population. And at night the officers, re-enforced, drag forth the
wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight,--they drag him
forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life,--calling
upon God, calling upon his father and mother,--for like a very child
had this man become in the prospect of death,--they drag him forth to
execution. He is hoisted on the scaffold and his head falls! And then
through every conscience runs a shudder. Never had legal murder appeared
with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly implicated
in the deed. It is at this very moment that from a young man's breast
escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart,--a cry of pity and anguish,--a
cry of h