The Sun. — 1847-09-02 (London, England)

HENRY HOCKEIL. It is impossible to read the impassioned ejaculations of this excellent but ill-doomed matron, without lamenting for her destiny. The narrative bears in every detail the character of a romance, and though the p3sa4-es of these "ImpressioLs " of the Duche.s DE PRASLIN are broken almost to incoherence, and written with an inartistic simplicity of language, they occasionally breathe the affectionate intensity of  " Eloise," and the gloomy and despond•ut anguish of the " S,lrtor Resartus." It is not, however, to the manuscripts of the Duchess DE CHOISEUL•PRASLIN that we would make immediate reference ; it is rather to the judicial brutality evinced throughout the examination of her wretched husband.  civilized as France unquestionably is, her criminal code, when contra-teri with that a RngLat,a, ii as a code or barbarians. tier dungeons are virtually as atrocious rec.pta.eles 'or the accused, as the iron cages in which her eleventh Louis incarcerated his antagonists. Her courts of inquiry are moveny as inhuman  as those of the Inquisition, when the victims of the supreme authority were sunized into an acknow ledgment of their guilt by the wheel, the rack, the thumbscrews, and the scavenger's daughter. Often as this charge has been levelled against the French system of j urisprudence, the truth of the accusation was never more deplorably enforced than during the examination of that miserable Peer, who has only escaped from an ignominious decapitation upar. the scaffold, by adding to the infamy of assassinsttf:m the despair of suicide. Never, certainly, was in terrogation conducted with such consummate cruelty With ourselves the accused is regarded as guiltless until every circumstance of the transaction has been debated and investigated, and every syllable of evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, has been elicited from the successive occupants of the witness-box. By a species of magnanimity, unknown and unappreciated among our neighbours, the laws of England regard every man as innocent until he is proved, upon public trial, to be guilty. Nor is the leniency of our criminal code restricted to this ; its generosity extends further; it requires not only that no confession of crime shall be extorted from those who are charged with its commission, but it actually refuses to receive any confessions of a man's culpability as evidence against him, unless those confessions are made after being warned that they will tend towards his conviction. Beyond this, our judges are empowered to grant to any destitute person accused of some serious offence the advantages of an advocate--such advocate being compensated for the exercise of his forensic abilities by fees drawn from the revenues of the Government. This is carrying out, indeed, by a beautiful punctilio the allegorical representation of Justice ; this is, in truth, binding up the eyes of the goddess with a bandage. Nor is her judgment warped by this leniency. Her deciMons are as inexorable ; her punishments are as decisive ; he: sword is as keen ; her scales are as accurately balanced. In France, how enormous and deplorable is the &fference ! "I here the law is not so much devoid of benevolence as of comm, n humanity--it is not even impart a'—it is rn r:dly oblique—it leans to the side of severity—it takes suspicion for testimony—it views accuse as tantamount to conviction—it has raised the scaffold before it has formed the tribunal. Ob-erve the dastardly course adopted in reference to the Duke DE CUOISEULIittASLIN. ' lie is con:rontel with the President of the Court of Peers and tte members of the Commission, and endeavours are ma,'.e to extort from his lips— his lips, wr;thiug with a thousand emotions—the declaration of his own dishonour and atrocity! Great D l the agonies of such an inquisition are only comparable with those inflicted by red hot pincers and boiling As this wretched man was, in the universal conviction, most guilty, he might have been most innocent, ard, presuming i mi natn innocent mats to have good in his place, the interrogations of thei French authorities would have been conceived as ruthlessly articulated. Some of the o'larges were put to the accused Duke in this manner : j I recommend y. II to shorten the fatigue which seems pre,. ot.l by milt:ng. a eonfesssion. for it ie imp ,ssild, .fin• you to d,ny ; you cannot dare to deny." IL " Was your res eution tormed when you went to  be:?" wife stret!hed upon the spot 111. Was not your w where you had struck her fir lint time: IV. • You inut have experienced a very distressing moment when you gh *ill ou had just gltw, uon entering Unlimber, that 'MU were coven-d with p the bloat w shed: and which you were obliged tp wash ~tf V. " You are very wraelted to have committed tliia crime 1' VI. Rave you not received bad advice, which impelled you to this crime?