I said above that venality, or the system of purchase, was not necessary to obtain these results. The principle is this, that the magistracy must be independent, and to be independent it must have a proprietary right in its duties. This can only be obtained if it hold its office by inheritance or purchase as was done under the _ancien regime_; or, if it were somehow contrived that magistrates should not be chosen by the Government. The purchase or inheritance plan is not popular, then the only alternative is that the magistrates should be chosen by some body other than the Government. By whom then? The people? Then the judges would be dependent upon the people and the electors. --That would be better, or less bad.-- Not at all. If the judges were chosen by the electors, they would be even less impartial than if they were elected by the Government. The judge then would think of nothing but of being re-elected. He would always give judgment in favour of the party which had elected him. Would you care to be judged before a court composed of the deputies of your department? Certainly not, if you belong to the weaker party. Yes, if you belong to the majority, but then only if you are certain that your adversary belongs to the minority, or, if he belong to your own party, that he is a less influential elector than yourself. To sum up, there is no guarantee of impartiality if the judges are elected. Further, if the system of electing judges by those liable to their jurisdiction were adopted, there would be an extensive and, I might add, a most entertaining variety of justice. Judges, who were elected by a "blue" or republican majority, and who were anxious for re-election, would always deliver judgment in favour of the blues. The same thing would happen in the "white" or royalists districts. "Justice has her epochs," Pascal said ironically, and in this case justice would have her districts. It would not be the same in the _Alpes-Maritimes_ as in the _Cotes-du-Nord_. The Court of Appeal, if it attempted to be impartial, would spend its time sending cases back from a blue district to be revised in a white, and the decisions delivered in a white country to be revised in a blue. There would be judicial and legal anarchy. --If the bench is not to be inherited, nor bought, nor chosen by the Government, nor elected by the people, by whom is it to be nominated?-- By itself; I see no other solution. For instance I can suggest one good method, though there may be several. All the doctors of law in France could choose the judges of appeal and the judges of appeal could choose and promote all the judges. This is an aristocratic-democratic scheme on a very broad basis. Or else the judges alone might choose the judges of appeal, and the judges of appeal might appoint and promote the judges. That is an oligarchical method.