The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-31 00:00:00

THE FRENCH PAR.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The suspension of the French Advocates,
Dupont, Pinart, and Michel, for their honest
and fearless discharge of their duty to their
clients, in exposing and denouncing the falsifi-
cation of written documents by the Law Officers
of the Crown, on the late political trials, has
excited the sympathy of the Bar and the public
for the victims of this act of paltry oppres-
sion. Instead of being disgraced by the
sentence of vindictive poiver, it has raised
them in public estimation; they are felicitated
upon the virtue, the firmness, and the talent that
detected and exposed the snares of blood which
were laid for the lives of innocent men. They
receive the rewards of those intrepid defenders
of liberty and life, whom neither the smiles nor
the frowns of power could seduce or terrify.
Public opinion avenges their just cause upon
their oppressors, and they are followed into
their temporal retirement by the applauses of
their country.
This outrageous attack upon the independ-
ence of the French Bar has, we grieve to say,
found its apologists in England, in free,
enlightened, and generous England, where
conduct of such a description on the part
of Government would call forth a •orm
of indignation from the universal people
which no Government could safely en-
counter. Who are the apologists of this cri-
minal attack upon public rights, and upon jus-
tice itself ? Some of the Whig Journals, with
whose party the independence of the bar"
was, like " the liberty of the press," a standing
toast when exclusion from power made them,
on all public occasions, suppliants for popularity.
What is the defence set up ? It is that it is
only a quarrel between the Bench and the Bar
on a point of decorum ; and that it is, conse-
quently, too insignificant a matter for public
discussion. The sentence was inflicted, say the
Whig apologists of this act of tyranny, not by
the Government, but by the judicial authority,
and, of course, the Government has nothing
to do with it. Now let us, for an in,
stant, suppose that in England the sys-
tem of interrogating prisoners existed as it does
in France, and that on a trial for treason in the
Court of King's Bench it was discovered that
the answers of the prisoners were falsified, and
that the Crown officers were obliged to admit
she falsification, or in other words, the forgery
of evidence to affect the lives of the accused.
Every one must admit that the most malignant
species of forgery is that which is intended for
the destruction of human life, and no terms can
be too strong for its reprobation. Let us suppose
the counsel for the accused, upon detecting such
forgery, applied to the disgraceful attempt
the severest terms of reprobation that the
language could supply. Let us suppose that
they spoke with indignation of the conduct of
the law officers of the Crown, who, if ignorant
that such falsification had been effected after
the original documents came into their hands,
had grossly neglected their duty ; and, if
not ignorant of it, were still more criminal.
Let us suppose that the law officers took no
notice of the expressions of honest indignation
on the part of the Counsel, until they were
disappointed of their prey by a verdict of
acquittal—that then they denounced the Ad-
vocates whose intrepid ability had torn to
shreds the meshes of falsehood in which it was
sought to entangle the lives of the prisoners,
and that the Court, the ready instrument of the
oppressors' will, pronounced a sentence of sus-
pension upon the virtuous " delinquents," whose
able discharge of their professional duty, and
fidelity to their important trust, constituted
their splendid crime. Let us suppose, we say,
that such things had happened in the Court of
King's Bench, and would or ought public opi-
nion acquit the British Government of the odi-
ous responsibility of those proceedings on the
part of the Law Officers of the Crown ? Dare
they take such a course without the permission
of the Government ? If it were pretended that
they did, and Government did not instantly
displace them from offices which they so dis-
honoured, they must be taken to be agents of
the wilt of Government for that vindictive act,
as well as for all the purposes of the prosecution.
In resisting of late some attempts that were
made to innovate upon the administration of
justice in England by introducing some of the
most objectionable parts of the French practice,
we observed upon the facilities for oppression
which such practice would afford in all mali-
cious prosecutions, and more especially in po-
litical trials, where Government has an interest
in crushing political opponents. Soon, in-
deed, were the arguments which we then
adduced against the advocates for the compul-
sory interrogation of prisoners illustrated by new
experiments. Twenty-seven individuals are
taken into custody, upon a charge of intending
to °vet throw the Government. If the whole affair
was not a mere police plot, it certainly looks very
like it. At all events there was no real evidence
to justify the depriving these persons of their
liberty, and putting them on trial for their lives.
In England they must have been discharged at once
on being taken before a Magistrate, unless he
ssere a Magistrate who thought the Home
Office could confer on him the power of
attempting to extract evidence by compulsory
interrogation. In France the Magistrate,
relying upon that power, deprives those men
of their liberty, and then five 2nonths are
spent by the interrogators endeavouring
to extract from the lips of the prisoners
themselves, by the ingenious process of mental
torture, evidence to insure their own conviction.
This fails, and then, as a last resort, the exa-
minations so obtained are falsified, and the
Counsel who detect and denounce the atrocious
proceeding, and who bear their clients unscathed
through the fiery ordeal, are themselves made
the objects of political vengeance, and attempted
to be deprived of their means of livelihood, by
a temporary banishment from their profession.
It is consolatory to know that while those ho-
nest Advocates gather honourable distinction in-
stead of disgrace from their punishment, they
are not likely to suffer in their income, as many
of their brethren of the bar have offered to hold
their briefs, and continue to do so until the
term of their suspension shall have expired,
should their appeal against the monstrous sen-
tence be unsuccessful.

Nye placed some time ago the solemn, grave,
and decorous administration of justice in the
i
superior Courts of this country n contrast t‘ ith
the criminal procedure of the French Courts,
which are, as we then stated, disgraced by
scenes only worthy of a theatre or a bear-garden.
We believe we may as fairly contrast the
purity of the English Judges with the com-
plaisant morality of those of France, who lint
too often only allow us to see in their acts the
distorted image of Justice as reflected by a po-
litical mirror. The march of the French Go-

vernment has been for some time past towards
despotic power, and its attempt to put down the
independence of the Bar is perfectly in keeping
with its unceasing efforts to crush the liberty of
the Press.