d a concert was given there, during our
stay at Aix, once every week. One of the lawyers, in talking of this
court, informed me, that in that very room, where the judges of the
court of contraband sat, he had played in comedy and tragedy, pleaded
causes, had taken his part in concerts, and danced at balls, under its
several revolutions, its different political phases of a theatre, a
court of justice, a concert and a ball-room. Exactly similar to this was
the fate of the churches, palaces, and the houses of individuals under
Napoleon, which were alternately barracks, hospitals, stables, courts of
justice, _caffes, restaurats_, &c.

The penal code of the late Emperor breathes throughout a spirit of
humanity, which must astonish every one acquainted with his character.
The punishment of death, which, according to Blackstone, may be
inflicted by the English law in one hundred and sixty different
offences, is now in France confined to the very highest crimes only; the
number of which does not exceed twelve. A minute attention has been
paid to the different degrees of guilt in the commission of the same
crime; and according to these, the punishments are as accurately
proportioned as the cases will permit. One species of capital punishment
has been ordained instead of that multitude of cruel and barbarous
deaths which were marshalled in terrible array along the columns of the
former code. This punishment is decapitation. The only exception to this
is in the case of parricide, in which, previous to decapitation, the
right hand is cut off; and in the punishment for high-treason, in which
the prisoner is made to walk barefoot, and with a crape veil over his
head to the scaffold, where he is beheaded. Torture was abolished by
Louis XVI., and has never afterwards been resumed.

After Napoleon had it in view to form a new code for France, he was at
great pains to collect together the most upright and honourable, as well
as the most able amongst the French lawyers; the principal members of
whom were Tronchet, one of the counsel who spoke boldly and openly in
defence of the unfortunate Louis XVI., Portalis, Malville, and Bigot de
Preameneau. Under such superintendance, the work was finished in a short
time.

The trial by jury has been for some time established in France; but the
Emperor, dreading that so admirable an institution, if managed with an
impartial hand might, in too serious a manner, impose restraint upon his
individual