CH. VII.] 66 THE DEAD ALIVE. 309 What proof could The Abbé was ar him. And the daughter of La Pivardière, a girl of the age of nine years, deposed that she heard in the middle of the night the voice of her father crying out, "O! my God, have pity on me!" seem more complete than this? rested, and the servants were confronted with him; but in his presence they hesitated, faltered, and at last openly retracted and disavowed all that they had previously sworn. No sooner however was he removed, than they reiterated their former statement, and, on being again confronted with him, they pertinaciously adhered to it. While matters were in this state, a most unexpected turn was given to the proceedings. It was confidently asserted that La Pivardière was alive, and several witnesses came forward and swore that they had seen him at Châteauroux and at Issoudun, a few days after the time when he was said to have been murdered at Narbonne. Upon this, she who was either his wife or widow, and upon whom such a load of suspicion rested, applied to the court for a warrant of arrest against her husband, that the fact of his existence might be duly proved. Two months elapsed before Pivardière again appeared, but he was then seen at Romorantin, and, being recognized, he was immediately seized and carried to the prison where the two maid servants were confined, in order that he might be identified. They, however, both declared that he was not their missing master, and that they did not know the individual before them. In this perplexity the procureur du roi demanded his detention that the mystery might be cleared up; but the authorities refused to interfere, and he went away from the place, leaving the fact of Pivardière's existence enveloped in greater mystery than ever. Not long afterwards, the accused parties were put upon their trial for the supposed murder, and an order was issued for the arrest of the individual who was said to be La Pivardière wherever he might be found. He did not, however, require to be searched for, but voluntarily came forward, and, appearing before the procureur at Romorantin, he declared that he was De la Pivardière, and avowed his double marriage. What follows is singular enough. Instead of being immediately arrested and tried for bigamy, he made a formal demand that his identity should be first established by legal proof in a civil process; and it was in this stage of the affair, that D'Aguesseau was employed as counsel; and he had to prove that the person whose suit was before the court, was the same De la Pivardière whose supposed murder was the subject of the criminal trial which was then pending. This he did in a very elaborate argument, in which he commented with masterly skill upon the conflict of probabilities and evidence in this extraordinary case. The result was that the identity was established, and the surviving servant who had given evidence as to the fact of the murder, was condemned to make the amende honorable, to be whipped, branded with a fleurde-lis, and banished for ever from the place where the parliament was sitting. The accused parties were, of course, set at liberty.' During the eighteenth century, until towards its 1 The most remarkable trial in this country, involving question of identity of a party, was that of Elizabeth Canning, in 1754, for perjury. State Trials, xix. 283. It excited at the time an extraordinary degree of interest, and the country may be said to have been divided upon the question, whether Mary Squires satisfactorily proved an alibi or not. But it is difficult to understand how there could be a doubt in the case; and it says little for the acumen of people in those days, that Canning's story of her robbery and imprisonment for a month in a hayloft should have found credence in a court of justice. CH. VII.] ABOLITION OF ORDER OF ADVOCATES. 311 close, the profession of the law continued to flourish in France, and many eloquent speakers upheld its former reputation; amongst whom may be specially mentioned De Sacy, De Mauléon, Séguier, Gerbier, Lally Tollendal, Servan, Portalis, Ducoudray, Saint Amand, Malesherbes, Tronchet, and Desèze. But amidst the wreck of institutions at the time of the Revolution, when the ancient parliaments of the kingdom were swept away, the order of advocates was involved in the general destruction. By a decree of the 2d of September, 1790, the National Assembly pronounced its doom, and abolished at one swoop all the rights and privileges of the bar. It ordained que les hommes de loi, ci-devant appelés avocats, ne devant former ni ordre ni corporation, n'auront aucun costume particulier dans leurs fonctions. Thus, the very name of avocat ceased for a time to exist, and those who still followed the profession were styled, in the new and ridiculous nomenclature of the Revolution, défenseurs officieux. But no previous study was required to prepare them for the discharge of their duties: no discipline was enforced : there was no longer a bar in France united by a common bond of sympathy, and obedient to the traditionary rules which had been handed down from a remote antiquity. And it may seem strange, that this measure not only was not resisted by its members, but even accepted by them with alacrity and joy. The reason of this was, as Fournel informs us, a regard to the dignity of their calling, and a conviction that, under the new order of things, it must be degraded from its ancient position.' We are told that those who were most distinguished by zeal for their profession, and who attached the most importance to the name of advocate and the honour of Hist. des Avoc., tom. ii. 540. et seq. his colleagues at the bar of the Convention, where he pleaded the cause of the discrowned king, for three hours, with the most touching eloquence. It would be difficult to imagine a more affecting scene than that day presented. The descendant of a line of kings, who, since the time of Hugh Capet, had sat for seven hundred years upon the throne of France, stood, like our own Charles the First, before his subjects to receive the doom of death. For he and his fearless advocates well knew that all defence was vain. It would have been as easy to persuade a troop of wolves to forego their prey, as to appeal with effect to the justice and humanity of that tribunal. The Girondists, indeed, numbered amongst them men who, like Vergniaud, Roland, Brissot, Barbaroux, Isnard and Gaudet, were not deaf to the voice of reason, and whose hearts were not steeled against compassion; but, though intrepid on the scaffold, they had no moral courage. They could not cope with the fierce energy of the Mountain, and, to escape the charge of befriending royalty, they were ready to condemn the innocent. And this is the dark blot upon the history of men who might otherwise command our respect for their sincerity, and our pity for their misfortunes. They had not the boldness to act up to their convictions. They wished, and yet they feared to rescue Louis from death: Letting "I dare not," wait upon "I would," and their fate is an awful warning to mankind not to surrender the dictates of conscience to the voice of clamour, and purchase a fleeting popularity at the expense of justice and of truth. Of his effort on this occasion, Desèze afterwards modestly said, "Compelled as I was to prepare a defence of such importance in four nights, while I employed the CH. VII.] TRIAL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. 315 day-time with my colleagues in examining the numerous papers which were communicated to us, I need hardly say that it bears marks of the extreme haste in which I was obliged to compose it, and that it presents in some sort, as it were, only results; but I had to fulfil a sacred duty, and I consulted only my devotion, and not my powers." When they withdrew from the hall, Louis fell on his neck and embracing him, said with tears, Mon pauvre Desèze. He must have felt himself at that moment well repaid for all his anxieties by such an affecting acknowledgment of his exertions. The concluding passage of his eloquent speech seems to have fully reached the height of his great argument. "Louis anticipated the wishes of his people by his own sacrifices, and yet it is in the name of that same people, that you demand to-day- Citizens! I cannot go onI pause before History. Remember that she will judge your judgment, and that her voice will be that of ages!" This is the same thought which was so finely expressed by Quintilian respecting Socrates, when he refused to supplicate the judges for his life;-Posterorum se judiciis reservavit. Marie Antoinette, also, did not disdain the aid of counsel, when, for the first time in history, a queen appeared as a criminal before earthly judges. Chauveau-Lagarde and Tronçon-Ducoudray were the advocates of this daughter of the Cæsars, whose hair was blanched with sorrow at that memorable hour. Their speeches have not been preserved; but, from the only notice of them that remains, they seem to have sued for mercy rather than asserted the innocence of their client. We may, however, be sure that nothing they could have said would have equalled her own sublime apostrophe, beside which, the adjuration of De |