# The Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869)/Chapter 69

CHAPTER III.
LEX, REX, FEX.
UNEXPLAINED arrest, which would greatly astonish an Englishman nowadays, was then a very common proceeding of the police. Recourse was had to it, notwithstanding the Habeas Corpus Act, up to George II.'s time, especially in such delicate cases as were provided for by lettres de cachet in France; and one of the accusations against which Walpole had to defend himself was that he had caused, or allowed, Neuhoff to be arrested in that manner. The accusation was probably without foundation, for Neuhoff, King of Corsica, was put in prison by his creditors.
These silent seizures of the parson, very usual with the Holy Væhme in Germany, were countenanced by German custom, which regulates one half of the old English laws, and recommended in certain cases by Norman custom, which rules the other half. Justinian's chief of the palace police was called "Silentiarius Imperialis." The English magistrates who practised the seizures in question relied upon numerous Norman texts: "Canes latrant, sergentes silent," and "Sergenter agere, id est tacere." They quoted Landulphus Sagax, paragraph 16: "Facit Imperator silentium." They quoted the charter of King Philip in 1307: "Multos tenebimus bastonerios qui, obmutescentes, sergentare valeant." They quoted the statutes of Henry I. of England, cap. 53: "Surge signo jussus. Taciturnior ​esto. Hoc est esse in captione regis." They took advantage especially of the following prescription, held to form part of the ancient feudal franchises of England: "Sous les viscomtes sont les serjans de l'espée, lesquels doivent justicier vertueusement à l'espée tons ceux qui suient malveses compagnies, gens diffamez d'aucuns crimes, et gens fuites et forbannis . . . et les doivent si vigoureusement et discrètement appréhender, que la bonne gent qui sont paisibles soient gardez paisiblement et que les malfeteurs soient espoantés." To be thus arrested was to be seized "à le glaive de l'espée." The jurisconsults referred besides "in Charta Ludovici Hutuni pro Normannis," chapter Servientes spathæ. The "Servientes spathæ," in the gradual approach of base Latin to our idioms, became "sergentes spadæ."
These silent arrests were the contrary of the Clameur de Haro, and gave warning that it was advisable to hold one's tongue until such time as light should be thrown upon certain matters still shrouded in mystery. They signified questions reserved, and showed in the operation of the police a certain amount of raison d'état. The legal term "private" was applied to arrests of this description. It was thus that Edward III., according to some chroniclers, caused Mortimer to be seized in the bed of his mother, Isabella of France. This again, we may venture to doubt, for Mortimer sustained a siege in his town before being captured. Warwick, the king-maker, delighted in practising this mode of "attaching people." Cromwell practised it, especially in Connaught; and it was with this precaution of silence that Trailie Arcklo, a relation of the Earl of Ormond, was arrested at Kilmacaugh.
These seizures of the body by a mere gesture of authority, represented rather a summons to appear than a ​warrant of arrest. Sometimes they were but processes of inquiry, and even argued, by the silence imposed upon all, a certain consideration for the person seized. For the mass of the people, little versed as they were in such shades of difference, they had peculiar terrors.
It must not be forgotten that in 1705, and even much later, England was far from being what she is to-day. The general features of its constitution were confused and, at times, very oppressive. Daniel Defoe, who had had a taste of the pillory himself, characterizes the social order of England, somewhere in his writings, as "the iron hands of the law." There was not only the law, but there was its arbitrary administration. We have but to recall Steele, ejected from Parliament; Locke, driven from his professorship; Hobbes and Gibbon, compelled to leave the country; Charles Churchill, Hume, and Priestly, persecuted; John Wilkes sent to the Tower. The task would be a long one, were we to enumerate the victims of the statute against seditious libel. The inquisition had gained quite a foothold throughout Europe, and its police practice was taken as a guide. A monstrous outrage against all rights was possible in England. We have only to recall the "Gazetier Cuirassé." In the middle of the eighteenth century, Louis XV. had writers whose works displeased him arrested in Piccadilly. It is also true that George II. laid hands on the Pretender in France, right in the middle of the hall at the opera. Those were two long arms,—that of the King of France reaching to London; that of the King of England, reaching to Paris! Such was the liberty of the period.
We may add that they were fond of putting people to death privately in prisons,—sleight-of-hand mingled with capital punishment; a hideous expedient, to which England is reverting at the present moment, thus giving ​to the world the strange spectacle of a great people, which, in its desire to take the better part, chooses the worse; and which, having before it the past on one side and progress on the other, loses its way, and mistakes night for day.