ill exist again in France.

It might be imagined, from the advantages in the administration of
criminal justice, that France was in this respect equal, if not superior
to Britain.--This, however, is by no means the case. The written
criminal code of France is indeed apparently more humane, and the civil
code less intricate and voluminous than with us in England. But there is
a wide and striking difference between this code, drawn up with all the
luminousness of speculative benevolence, and the manner in which the
same code is carried into execution: What signifies the purity of the
code, if the executive part of the system, the nomination of the judges,
the direction of the sentences, and the reversal of the whole
proceedings, was submitted to the power, and constituted part of the
iron prerogative, of a despotic Sovereign. It was the constant practice
of the late Emperor to appoint, whenever it was necessary for the
accomplishment of his own ends, what he denominated a COUR PREVOITALE--a
species of court consisting of judges of his own selection, who, with
summary procedure, condemned or acquitted, according to the pleasure of
its master. Not only was this court erected, which was in every respect
under the controul of the Emperor, but by means of his police
emissaries, of those pensioned spies whom he insinuated into all the
offices, and the remotest branches of the political administration, he
contrived to overawe the different judges, to keep them in perpetual
fear of the loss of their official situation, and in this manner to beat
down the evidence, to bias the sentence, and finally, to direct the
verdict. The judicial situations became latterly so completely under the
influence of the creatures of the Court, that I was informed by the
lawyers, that no judge was sure of remaining for two months in his
official situation.

Upon the important subject of criminal delinquency, I am sorry to say
the only information I contrived to collect was extremely
unsatisfactory. I had been promised, by an intelligent barrister, with
whom I had the good fortune to become acquainted, a detailed opinion
upon the state of criminal delinquency in France; but in the meantime
Napoleon landed from Elba, and my friend was called away from his civil
duties to join the national guard, who were marched, when it was too
late, in pursuit of Bonaparte.

From the calendar of crimes, however, which I had the opportunity of
examining at the Aix