‘The corpse of Madame Peytel was transported to her apartment; the bleeding body of the domestic was likewise brought from the road, where it lay; and Peytel, asked to explain the circumstance, did so.’ * * * * * Now, as there is little reason to tell the reader, when an English counsel has to prosecute a prisoner, on the part of the Crown, for a capital offence, he produces the articles of his accusation in the most moderate terms, and especially warns the jury to give the accused person the benefit of every possible doubt that the evidence may give, or may leave. See how these things are managed in France, and how differently the French counsel for the Crown sets about his work. He first prepares his act of accusation, the opening of which we have just read; it is published six days before the trial, so that an unimpassioned, unprejudiced jury has ample time to study it, and to form its opinions accordingly, and to go into court with a happy, just prepossession against the prisoner. Read the first part of the Peytel act of accusation; it is as turgid and declamatory as a bad romance; and as inflated as a newspaper document by an unlimited penny-a-liner:--‘The department of the Ain is in a dreadful state of excitement; the inhabitants of Belley come trooping from their beds,--and what a sight do they behold:--a young woman at the bottom of a carriage, _toute ruisselante_, just out of a river; her garments, in spite of the cold and rain, raised, so as to leave the upper part of her knee entirely exposed, at which all the beholders were affected, and cried, that the _first duty_ was to cover her from the cold.’ This settles the case at once; the first duty of a man is to cover the legs of the sufferer; the second to call for help. The eloquent ‘Substitut du Procureur du Roi’ has prejudged the case, in the course of a few sentences. He is putting his readers, among whom his future jury is to be found, into a proper state of mind; he works on them with pathetic description, just as a romance-writer would: the rain pours in torrents: it is a dreary evening in November; the young creature’s situation is neatly described; the distrust which entered into the breast of the keen old officer of gendarmes strongly painted, the suspicions which might, or might not, have been entertained by the inhabitants, eloquently argued. How did the advocate know that the people had such? did all the bystanders say aloud, ‘I suspect that this is a case of murder by Monsieur Peytel, and that his story about the domestic is all deception’? or did they go off to the mayor, and register their suspicion? or was the advocate there to hear them? Not he; but he paints you the whole scene as though it had existed, and gives full accounts of suspicions as if they had been facts, positive, patent, staring, that everybody could see and swear to.