I asked General La Fayette not long since, what he thought of the actual condition of France as respects the administration of justice. In most political cases he accused the government of the grossest injustice, illegality, and oppression. In the ordinary criminal cases he believed the intentions of the courts and juries perfectly fair, as, indeed, it is difficult to believe they should not be. In the civil suits he thought a great improvement had taken place; nor did he believe that there now exists much of the ancient corruption. The civil code of Napoleon had worked well, and all he complained of was a want of fitness between the subordinate provisions of a system invented by a military despot for his own support, and the system of _quasi_ liberty that had been adopted at the restoration; for the Bourbons had gladly availed themselves of all the machinery of power that Napoleon bequeathed to France.
A gentleman who heard the conversation afterwards told me the following anecdote. A friend of his had long been an unsuccessful suitor in one of the higher courts of the kingdom. They met one day in the street, when the other told him that an unsealed letter, which he held in his hand, contained an offer of a pair of carriage-horses to the wife of the judge who had the control of his affair. On being told he dare not take so strong a step, M. de ----, my informant, was requested to read the letter, to seal it and to put it in the _boîte aux lettres_ with his own hands, in order to satisfy himself of the actual state of justice in France. All this was done, and "I can only add," continued M. de ----, "that I afterwards saw the horses in the carriage of Madame ----, and that my friend gained his cause." To this anecdote I can only say, I tell it exactly as I heard it, and that M. de ---- is a deputy, and one of the honestest and simplest-minded men of my acquaintance. It is but proper to add, that the judge in question has a bad name, and is little esteemed by the bar; but the above-mentioned fact would go to show that too much of the old system remains.
In Germany justice bears a better name, though the absence of juries generally must subject the suitor to the assaults of personal influence. Farther south, report speaks still less favourably of the manner in which the laws are interpreted; and, indeed, it would seem to be an inevitable consequence of despotism that justice should be abused. One hears occasionally of some signal act of moderation and equity on the part of monarchies, but the merits of systems are to be proved, not by these brilliant _coups de justice_, but by the steady, quiet and regular working of the machine, on which men know how to calculate, in which they have faith, and which as seldom deceives them as comports with human fallibility, rather than by _scenes_ in which the blind goddess is made to play a part in a _melodrama_.