authority of the sub-prefects, the prefects, and the minister of the interior. The ordinary service can only be required within the commune. Extraordinary service consists, either in escorting from one town to another convoys of monies or goods belonging to the state, or accused persons, convicts, and prisoners; or in affording assistance to neighbouring communes, arrondissements, or departments, whether menaced by tumult and sedition, or by the incursions of robbers, banditti, and other malefactors; but this only in case of the insufficiency of the gendarmerie, and of the regular troops.

The expenditure of the national guard is voted, regulated, and superintended like all the other municipal expenditures.

Such are the fundamental regulations, constituting the present organization of the national guard.

The law of the 22d of March, 1831, marks out a third kind of service for the national guard, which is that of mobilization, as an auxiliary to the regular army, for the defence of fortified places, the coasts, and frontiers. Here the organization is changed, and detached corps are formed in a special manner for this object. This part of the law is to be re-modelled, and a new measure has been very recently brought forward in the Chamber of Deputies.

Next to the law for the organization of the national guard, comes that for the recruiting of the army. A reform in this respect was not particularly urgent, as the law of 1818, for which the country is indebted to the Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, gave general satisfaction; and its non-performance as to promotions was all that was complained of: but the chamber is at this time occupied in its re formation. There were only two important principles to be introduced into this branch of legislation. One is, that the force of the contingent to be raised for recruiting the army and navy, shall be determined by the chambers every session. This end is answered by the law of the 11th of October, 1830. And the chambers now hold the power of peace and war in their hands, not only indirectly by voting the necessary supplies in money, but more directly by periodically voting the supplies of men. other principle is, that the rank (not the employ) of an officer, is an acquired and inviolable property. This principle, of which the germ is laid in the charter, will no doubt be established in the expected law of promotion.

The

The magistracy of Charles the Tenth having been continued, few changes have taken place, either in the persons or the regulations composing the judicial establishment. A law of the 10th of December, 1830, suppressed the juges auditeurs, and forbade for the future the appointment of conseillers auditeurs in the cours royales. On the other hand, the law of

the 31st of August, 1830, which declares that all functionaries of government or justice, who in the fifteen days shall not have taken the oaths of "fidelity to the King of the French, and obedience to the constitutional charter (that of 1830 being understood), have virtually resigned," has happily opened the ranks of the magistracy to some of the partisans of the revolution of July. Besides this, many members of the old magistracy had previously given proof of their independence, and attachment to the laws; and finally, some judges who, notwithstanding the marked line which they had before taken, have had the impudence to take the new oaths (no doubt with a mental reservation) have been compelled, by the outcry of public opinion, to withdraw from their official stations. The number of these, however, has been very small. A still more important law, inasmuch as it affects the institution itself, and not merely the persons forming the judicial establishment, is that of the 4th of March, 1831, which reduces the courts of assize to three judges, and which modifies the majority required for a verdict on the part of a jury. It may easily be imagined that these courts only giving judgment through the intervention of juries (excepting in cases of contempt), the number of five judges, previously required by the law, was useless; and it was rendered still more so by the third article of the new law, which article directs that the verdict of the jury may be given in future against the person accused on a majority of more than seven votes. It consequently abrogates the 351st article of the code of criminal procedure, which had been previously modified by a law dated the 24th of May, 1821. Article 351 required that when the jurors had, by a simple majority of seven against five, declared the accused guilty, the judges forming the court should deliberate on the same point; these magistrates were then considered as forming, as it were, a part of the jury. Although deliberating separately, the vote of each of them being added, either to the majority or the minority of the jury, the accused might then be condemned by the mere majority of the votes so united. Two magistrates out of the five so added to the majority of the jurors, sufficed in such cases for conviction. According to the law of 1821, a verdict of guilty could only be given by a majority of the court, added to a majority of the jury; that is, by a majority of at least ten votes against seven; but the new law renders the intervention of the court useless for the future. The division of seven votes against five will now secure the acquittal of the prisoner; whilst formerly, by the terms of the 347th article of the code of criminal procedure, the equal division of six, and six alone, was favourably interpreted.

In conformity with one of the promises of the charter, the law

of the 8th of October, 1830, has restored to juries the cognizance of offences committed by the press, or other mode of publication. The only exceptions are, in cases of defamation and libel against private individuals, and of defamation and slanderous words against all persons, even the agents of government: which cases are still within the cognizance of the tribunals of simple or correctional police; except in cases where the tribunals or the legislative chambers shall deem it proper to make use of the right reserved to them, of summoning before themselves persons accused of offences against the chambers, or of wilful mistatements in the reports of the sittings of the chambers, courts, or tribunals.

The same law confers on juries the cognizance of political offences—as, for example, the pulling down or defacing the public emblems of the royal authority. This, as far as relates to offences committed through the press, or other means of publication, is returning simply to the legislation of 1819 and 1822. But by the law of the 8th of April, 1831, the public ministry is exempted from the forms of preparatory instruction prescribed by the law of 1819. Then the plaintiff, or the public minister, was equally bound to denounce the crime to the judge of instruction, who made his report on it to the judges composing the tribunal, or one of the chambers of the tribunal of premiere instance, which met with closed doors. They might decide whether there were sufficient grounds for proceeding, and the public accuser, or the civil party, might appeal to that division of the cour royale which has jurisdiction over the legality of accusations. This court of appeal sent the parties to trial at the assizes, or not, as they thought proper. Now, conformably to the law of 1831, the public accuser may, provided there has been no seizure of papers, or engravings, &c., cite the accused directly and immediately before the Court of Assize: for this purpose he addresses a requisition to the President of the Court of Assize, to obtain notice of the day on which the accused shall be summoned to appear. Where a seizure has been made, the proceedings are carried on according to the law of 1819.

Whilst we are upon the subject of publication, the law of the 10th of December, 1830, may be mentioned, respecting criers and bill-stickers, and the matters which they respectively publish. By the 290th article of the penal code, no one could follow the occupation of a crier, or bill-sticker, whether of writings, printed papers, drawings, or engravings, without a licence from the police, who granted, refused, withdrew, or restored the ticket or medal, constituting the licence, quite arbitrarily and regulations to that effect might still be enforced with regard to a number of other trades, such as coalmen, ragmen, factors, &c. So that persons engaged in these occupations form, as it were, a certain class of unpaid

public functionaries. Thus the criers and bill-stickers having perpetually before them the fear that their licences would be recalled, neither proclaimed nor posted up anything which had not previously been approved by the police. It was a permanent censorship. The law of 1830 has now emancipated these unhappy criers and bill-stickers, and has re-opened to them a field of emulation and free competition. Whoever now wishes to become, even for a time, a crier or a bill-sticker, a seller or distributer on the highway, of papers, whether printed, lithographed, engraved, or written by hand, is only bound previously to declare, before the municipal authorities, his intentions, and the place of his abode. But with the exception of the journals, daily or periodical papers (subject, as we shall immediately see, to the formality of having a responsible editor, and of giving securities), and the judgments and other acts of the constituted authorities, no other paper, whether printed, lithographed, engraved, or written, may be cried in the streets till the municipal authorities (at Paris, the prefecture of police), shall have been informed of the title by which it is to be announced, and shall likewise have had a copy of it left with them. As a final precaution, no paper, whether written, printed, lithographed, or engraved, containing political intelligence, or treating of political subjects, may be posted up or placarded in the streets, squares, or other public places. Such are the regulations now imposed on the different mediums of communication between writers and the public. As to the journals, or periodical publications, the three days (the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July), gave birth to some, which coming forth in the midst of danger, had broken through the rules which required a responsible editor, securities, &c. It would appear difficult, on the one hand, to subject these journals, without regarding their origin, and the courage of their authors, to the level of the common rule; and on the other hand, to reconcile this rule itself with the promise of a real liberty of the press: a liberty which, in its very nature, rejects every kind of preventive measure, and only authorizes the repression of abuses when committed.

This double difficulty has been overcome by the law of the 14th of December, 1830, which is limited to the reduction of the bond, the stamp duties, and the postage affecting the journals and other periodical publications; and has brought under the authority of the former laws those journals which took their rise during the revolution.

The theatres are also, notwithstanding the revolution, still under the yoke (though perhaps a little relaxed in practice) of the imperial regulations; and we have lately seen, in defiance of the text of the new charter, which states that the censorship can never be

re-established, the first representation of a piece forbidden and prevented, by threatening the manager of the theatre to withdraw his privilege, that is, his licence, in conformity with the regulations of a decree of 1806.

We have now finished the enumeration of the changes which have taken place in the political administration and judicial branches of the government, since the revolution of July, 1830. There still remain to be mentioned some other laws, having for their object, either the reform of penal legislation, or transitory and financial measures; or the amelioration of the state of the army: but with regard to these, any details would be here superfluous. Such are, the law of the 11th of October, abolishing the law of sacrilege; the law of the 4th of March, 1831, on the repression of the slave trade, which punishes every kind of participation, whether direct or indirect, in that infamous traffic, as well as any act preceding, accompanying, or following it; the law of the 10th of April, 1831, against mobs collected in the streets; the law of the 21st of March, separating the tax on the person from the tax on personal property, and changing the first into a capitation tax, that is, imposing it immediately on each person liable, instead of its being distributed as formerly between the departments, arrondissements, and communes, and afterwards assessed upon inhabitants, &c.

the

Great improvements will, doubtless, result from the forthcoming law of finance, (the budget of 1832.) The corn laws are likewise about to be revised, which renders it unnecessary to say anything in this place of some temporary measures respecting liquors, and some modifications introduced into the corn laws, by the law of the 20th of October, 1830, and the ordinance of the 30th of June, 1831.

An ordinance of the 12th of November, 1830, which deserves particular notice here, has replaced Corsica within the common law of France, and abolished the special court called the Court of Criminal Justice, continued, contrary to the charter, by an ordinance of the 29th of June, 1814. This court is replaced in this department by a Court of Assize, on the same principle as the other Courts of Assize. It is our intention to continue this account, by laying before our readers the result of the discussion in the present session, of which the most important labours will be, besides the measure of the peerage, the law of the civil list, a law reforming, the penal code, and the budget of 1832.