The National Register.
London, England, 1815-08-27 00:00:00

THE NATIONTAJA. REGISTER.

COUNCIL OF REVISION.
FINAL JUDGMENT ON COLONEL LABEDOYERE.

Yesterday morning, at eight o'clock, the Council of Re-
vision, to which the sentence on Colonel Labedoye►e was
referred, in order to its being confirmed or annulled, as-
sembled.
The new Counsel of the Prisoner were M. dc Joly and
M. Mauguin.
The Council, consisting of the Baron de Conchy, Mare.
chal.de-Camp; two Colonels, and two Captains. M Ricard,
Cotnmissaire-Ordonnateur, ordered all the papers contxcted
with the proceedings to be read.
The Reporting Judge stated, that having conside•ed the
documents, it did not appear to him that the objections to
the proceedings were sufficiently serious to affied ground
for annulling the judgment.
M. Mauguin, in a pleading of two hours, stated v:•z
objections, founded chiefly on the incompetence ( the
Councils of War, of the first division in general, aed ~f the
second in particular, and on several omissions of fortes
" I do not endeavour," said he, " to exculpate my client
from all that is imputed to him. Placed in one of those ex-
traordinary situations which are happily rare in the history
of nations and of Kings, the Monarch had to choose be.
tween pardon and justice. This choice has been made, and
Colonel Labedoyere has been brought before you.
" In examining whether the Council of War had regular
cognizance of the case, under the King's Ordinance of the
21st August, he did not dissemble, that he was touching
upon a very delicate question. He brought to recollection
the Declaration of the Court of Appeal of Rennes, that
Imperial Decrees, bearing on measures of general interest,
were not obligatory. That Declaration had indeed been an.
nulled by the Court of Cassation, in virtue of an equivocal
Article of the Constitution of the year VIII. which contained
oblique uispositions, favourable to despotism. According
to the view of M. Mauguin, the natural Judges of the ac-
cused were those of the 7th Division. He had been trans-
ferred in the Ist division, because there was no Council of
War formed at Grenoble; hut the King alone had not the
right of making this transfer. It required an order from the
Judges of the Court of Cassation, and perhaps even a law
enacted by the three branches of the legislative authority.
" Even supposing the King could legally refer the case of
the accused to the Permanent Council of War, why did the
Governor of the division fix on the 2d Council of War in-
stead of the Ist. Was it not the former which the Ordi-
nance, by the vague manner in which it was expressed,
seemed to indicate.

,‘ Proceeding to consider the question of form, M. Mau-
guin endeavoured to establish :
" 1. That the 2d Council of War had contravened the
law, by not specifying in the minutes of its proceedings the
place in which its session was held.
" 2. That the examination of the witnesses had not been
regular. The judgtnent did not prove that they bad been
heard separately. They had not been required to make
oath, but merely a simple promise to tell truth. They had
not declared whether they were relations or allies of the
accused.

" s. The prisoner's defence was incomplete. Public no-
toriety proved that he had been interrupted in the middle of
his speech. Tie was not allowed to justify his intentions,
tho.ugh tribunals for the investigation of climes are obliged