“The power of pardon,” said M. Bergeret, “was one of the attributes of divine right. The king could only exercise it because, as the representative of God on earth, he was above the ordinary human justice. In passing from the king to the President of the Republic, this right lost its essential character and therefore its legality. It thenceforth became a flimsy prerogative, a judicial power outside justice and yet no longer above it; it created an arbitrary jurisdiction, foreign to our conception of the lawgiver. In practice it is good, since by its action the wretched are saved. But bear in mind that it has become ridiculous. The mercy of the king was the mercy of God Himself, but just imagine M. Félix Faure invested with the attributes of divinity! M. Thiers, who did not fancy himself the Lord’s Anointed, and who, indeed, was not consecrated at Rheims, released himself from this right of pardon by appointing a commission which was entrusted with the task of being merciful for him.” “It was only moderately so,” said M. Frémont. Here a young soldier entered the shop and asked for _Le Parfait Secrétaire_. “Remains of barbarism,” said M. Bergeret, “still persist in modern civilisation. Our code of military justice, for instance, will make our memory hateful in the eyes of the near future. That code was framed to deal with the bands of armed brigands who ravaged Europe in the eighteenth century. It was perpetuated by the Republic of ’92 and reduced to a system during the first half of this century. When a nation had taken the place of an army, they forgot to change the code, for one cannot think of everything. Those brutal laws which were framed in the first place to curb a savage soldiery are now used to govern scared young peasants, or the children of our towns, who could easily be led by kindness. And that is considered a natural proceeding!” “I don’t follow you,” said M. de Terremondre. “Our military code, prepared, I believe, at the Restoration, only dates from the Second Empire. About 1875 it was revised and made to suit the new organisation of the army. You cannot, therefore, say that it was framed for the armies of former times.”