FOREIGN REVIEW.

ART. I.—Barreau Français, Collection des Chefs-d'œuvre de l'Eloquence judiciaire en France, recueillie par MM. Clair et Clapier, avocats, 16 Vols. Paris.

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HE French are a people of many talents and enormous pretension. Ingenious, versatile, vain-glorious, they arrogate to themselves the advantage in every art and science under heaven —hence are they, if not fairly, yet most naturally, judged, sometimes, with a detracting bias in return. When a Frenchman claims pre-eminently for his nation the genius of oratory, as well as "le génie de la danse," it is difficult for the most impassive listener to resist the provocation to retort:-still, however, the credit of eloquent prose will hardly be denied to Pascal, Fenelon, Buffon, or Montesquieu, by those who know any thing of the matter; or the still rarer art of being eloquent in verse, to Corneille or Racine; or, in fine, a share in the high honours of oratory to Bossuet, Flechier, Massillon, or Bourdaloue. The sermons and funeral orations of these great preachers produced, upon illustrious and royal auditors, effects which recall the magic of ancient eloquence in the Forum and in the Agora, while, as compositions, they hold a classical and European rank in literature.

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Political or parliamentary eloquence was unknown in France up to the revolution. The monarchy there, at its best period(the so called Augustan age)—was harsh and tyrannical; and the parliaments,-mere corporate judicatures,-no touched on matters of state and government, than the pedagogue (Louis XIV.) entered, with whip in hand, not figuratively, but in fact, and lashed refractory deliberation into boyish silence and obedience. Sacred eloquence, however, was not the only kind exercised in France; there was another, of less celebrity and later growth-the judiciary, or eloquence of the bar; and both flowed from what is now tritely, but most truly called, the source of all genuine eloquence-Freedom.

It has been the constant policy of the See of Rome and its priesthood, to make princes absolute over their subjects, and themselves absolute over princes. Hence the anomalous licence with which some French churchmen have sounded awful warnings, and stern truths, in the ears of despotism, in vindication of

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the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power. The advocates even then claimed a sort of privilege from the too curious eye of the Jesuits, and the police, for their opinions and their libraries.* In the next reign, they asserted a dauntless and systematic tone of liberty, and the voice of justice, like that of religion, became eloquent, as it became free. But there is this distinction, to the honour of the French bar, in the different uses which the two orders made of liberty. While the church prompted and served the government in every measure of political oppression and exaction, as well as religious intolerance, the bar cherished and vindicated whatever of constitutional and legal right existed in France. Again, comparing the church and bar of France with the same orders in England, we find the -contrast inverted, and still more curious. The church, we have said, in France, has been servile, the bar independent; but in England, the church, on those great emergencies when our laws and liberties were vitally attacked, has stood firmly by the -nation, while the lawyers have a scandalous notoriety, in history, as the ready organs of arbitrary power, in every design against the national liberties. We will refer to one great crisisthat which preceded and ended in the revolution. James II. was bearing on with full sails to the most absolute tyranny. Feversham, at the head of the army, (after Monmouth's rebellion) shot all whom he chose to call his prisoners, by his royal warrant, without any form of trial. The judges and crown lawyers declared that the power of dispensing with the laws was the monarch's indefeasible prerogative. The Commons, by a vote of an additional revenue, made him independent of the parliament. Now when Feversham went so far as to indulge the savage sport of ordering men to death, while he and his officers drank the healths of the king and chief justice Jefferies to the music of the dying groans of his victims,-who came forward to tell the tyrant that his prisoners were entitled to trial by law, and that his executions were murders? Neither a judge, nor a lawyer, but a churchman-the bishop of Bath and Wells. When the House of Commons sacrificed, instead of guarding the public liberties, whence was the first resistance? "From the House of Lords and the Bench of Bishops," says Hume, "where the court usually expects the greatest complaisance and submission." But, above all, to the church belongs, exclusively, the merit of denying and opposing the dispensing power, which would have been itself an abrogation of all law. James's insidious toleration in the declaration of indulgence, had gained over the Protestant

See the letter of an advocate printed with the Provincial Letters of Pascal.

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Dissenters to his arbitrary views; and what with the servility of one party, and the selfishness of another, the dispensing power would have been established under this false and flimsy cover, if the bishops had not resisted the indulgence, not, as they expressly declared, because it was one of toleration, but because "it was founded on a prerogative, formerly declared illegal by parliament." In a word, the great stand against the usurpations of that infatuated monarch was made by the church,—and the courage and constancy of the bishops figured in the declaration of the Prince of Orange, as mainly promoting and justifying the revolution.

Whence this contrast between the two churches and the two bars, in England and in France ?-The principle of implicit faith, in the unreformed church, necessarily abhors, while the prin ciple of examination and private judgment, in the reformed church, as necessarily favours mental and therefore political liberty. "The church of Rome," it has been said, "attaches itself to no particular object of civil society,-it exists for itself, and by itself." But the church of England, admitting that it exists for itself, to the extent in which the spirit and interest of the corps must ever govern any order of men, yet exists, not by itself, but by the laws. Hence the church of England, in all cases where the laws were seriously threatened, had a common interest and made common cause with the nation: for the same reason, if indeed the distinction be necessary, the genius of the one church is intolerant, while that of the other is disposed to toleration. "Le principe d'examen adopté par les Protestants," says the author of the "Essai sur les Moeurs," who looked with impartial enmity upon all churches, "conduisait nécessairement à la tolérance, au lieu que le principe de l'autorité, point fondamental de la croyance Romaine, en écarte non moins nécessairement: enfin l'intolérance des Protestants n'était qu'un reste de papisme que les principes mêmes sur lesquels la réforme était fondée devaient détruire un jour." Without touching upon theology, or politics, or topics of the hour, in this place, the superior claim of toleration for the church of England may be put to a short and simple issue. Suppose a man intent upon pursuing and making public his researches into any branch of exact or speculative science-what church would he choose-that of Rome, or of Geneva, or of Scotland, or of England-with the view to indulging his speculations in unmolested freedom?-most surely the church of England. "The more learned Papists," says Herder, "must conceal or accommodate their knowledge, according to the paramount eternal interests of the See of Rome." The church of England, on the other hand, allows,

even beyond its exact precincts, a large and liberal pomeriumi, for conjectural sagacity and curious investigation, and has, itself, contributed more than its share to the common stock of knowledge, in the highest and boldest ranges of meditation and discovery. This characteristic opposition between the two churches, in the sympathy of the one with political despotism, of the other with political liberty, might be much more widely and deeply traced, if the occasion admitted a more discursive notice.

The opposition is much more startling, and really anomalous, between the two bars. France with her absolute monarchy, her despotic and barbarous jurisprudence, boasts a race of lawyers uniformly distinguished for their resistance to oppression and persecution-their endeavours to reform or mitigate the lawtheir zeal for justice, humanity, and religious toleration-while in England, with her free constitution, and the most popular of tribunals, the lawyers have been notorious for their prostitute servility! We find taem ministering to the despotic pedantry of James I. by precedents from the lower empire, and vindicating, under the succeeding princes of his house to its downfall, imposts by prerogative-the star-chamber-arbitrary imprisonmentsthe dispensing power. "It is no marvel," said Lord Clarendon, "that an irregular extravagant arbitrary power hath broken in upon us like a torrent, when our banks and our bulwarks, the laws, are in the custody of men who have rendered that study and profession which, in all ages, hath been of an honourable estimation, so contemptible and vile, that it would tempt men to that quarrel with the law itself, which Marcius had to the Greek tongue, who thought it a mockery to learn that language, the masters of which lived in slavery." Whence this singular phenomenon? honesty and independence where servility might be expected, and submission excused, at the bar in France; a quailing and corrupt spirit at the bar in England,—with institutions and laws so favourable to justice and freedom! It would seem as if there was a perverseness in human nature, disposing men to neglect or neutralize the best gifts of Providence. A rigorous climate and barren soil will exhibit industry, comfort, and independence; while a fruitful soil and the mildest heaven shew nothing but laziness, poverty, and bondage. We believe, however, that some causes, of a nature less abstract, may suggested in this instance. There is this leading one. The virtue of the French advocates was but feebly solicited: the monarch, already absolute, had but little need of them; and by the constitution of the judiciary order, they were shut out from place and promotion. The judicial office in France was purchased and transmitted by inheritance, and even limited to cer

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tain families, whose nobility was within a certain date. There is a short but able and interesting notice of the French bar, by Mr. Charles Butler, in his "Reminiscences." He communicates, as it must have been expected of one so conversant with foreign jurisprudence, and so distinguished in his own, curious and learned particulars respecting the French law and judicature, but tinged strongly by his religious prepossessions. Enough for him that a practice has existed under a Catholic regime, to find favour, at least indulgence, in his eyes. It is a truth eternal as any in morals, and repeated a thousand times, that the judge who has bought his place will sell justice: the French judges accordingly accepted presents, and listened to solicitations without shame or disguise. Mr. Butler says these solicitations, and the presents significally and technically called "spices" (épices), never affected the balance; and he indirectly eulogizes the vendibility of the judicial office, calling in Cardinal Richelieu and Mostesquieu to his aid. "The advocates for the venality of offices of justice," says he, "are proud to reckon among them the cardinal de Richelieu and Montesquieu." Now the authority of the Cardinal, the most ambitious and rapacious of ministers, should, on this question, carry little weight in the first place, and, in the second, the "Testament politique," which bears his name, has been long known for the clever forgery of an abbé Bourzeys. The chief French writer of the last century, who really believed it genuine, was that visionary, the Abbé de St. Pierre, who amused his life in recording his waking dream of "la paix perpétuelle." Then, as to Montesquieu, his main argument, fringed with minor plausibilities, is that the judicial function, if not sold under regulation, would become a corrupt traffic to the courtiers, and be still worse discharged. Is not this rather a satire upon the court, than a vindication of the practice? It should be mentioned, indeed, that Mr. Butler confines his approbation of it to national circumstances, and to France.

In France then the advocate looked only to the public and his client to these his great recommendation must be integrity and talent even fortune was not so much his object as celebrity; for this reason,-no talent, however commanding, no industry, however untiring, could amass wealth, or any thing beyond a moderate competency; but fame, in the highest sense, was attainable, and frequently attained. "Il existe," says M. Billecoq, a distinguished living advocate, in a ceremonial discourse to his brethren in 1812, "il existe dans l'ordre de notre société civile une profession dont l'exercice mène le plus souvent l'homme à la considération publique, quelquefois à la gloire, presque jamais à la fortune."

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