“The highways are no longer maintained by labor gangs; it is the government that has them maintained by convicts sentenced to a certain period of hard labor. Convicts are no longer relegated to seaports where no one sees them and where they cannot serve as an example in the interior of the realm; it was deemed more appropriate to mores for the example of those sentenced to a period of hard labor to be renewed every day, in public view, in order that the public might be warned on a daily basis that crimes against society are punished with the full rigor of the law.
“Since that sage institution, crimes against society are hardly committed any more, because no one wants to be exposed to the gaze of the people. Those condemned to death under the old criminal code are presently condemned to perpetual hard labor; they alone are sent to seaports to serve in the galleys. Before going there they are marked on both hands with the letters GP, in order that in case of escape they can be immediately recognized by the police. It was deemed disadvantageous to kill men from whom useful services could still be obtained. In that we have imitated the people of the north; the Russians gave that example of humanity to France.
“There is only one case in which the death penalty is invoked, and that is the crime of lèse-majesté; those who attempt to assassinate the sovereign are punished by death, because France loves her kings, and wanted to extirpate at the root the crime of lèse-majesté. The same penalty is applied to those who attempt the lives of princes and other members of the royal family, which is regarded by the nation as a sacred family in which, in default of the lineage of the reigning king, the nation finds chiefs to govern it in accordance with the Salic law.”
“Those are great changes,” I said to my guide. “I admire them. But what do I see on that road? What is the significance of that group of men and women?”
“It is,” he replied, “the chain of laborers going to work on the roads; men, women and children are following them. The children are asking their parents: “Why those chains? Why those iron balls? Why those public corrections by the overseers?”
“It is,” the reply is made to them, “because they are thieves, fraudulent bankrupts, crooked tax-collectors—in sum, bad lots of every sort who did not want to submit to the laws.”
“Ah,” say the little children, “we shall be careful not to do likewise; we shall respect the laws, and will not do what they forbid. That example, repeated almost every day, produces the best effect, changing mores and preventing crimes.”
After that, we went into the establishment of a schoolteacher. I asked him what his plan of education was.
“The reading of the laws,” he told me. “That of the moral code that contains what one owes to God and one’s neighbor, and mathematics. No one can occupy a position in the state unless he has a certificate of completion of three years in our schools.”
When we left the house of the teacher, the man who was accompanying me took me to the law court. I went in, and saw a curtain hanging at the back of the hall like that of a theater, on which was painted a Themis holding a sword in one hand and scales in the other. Weary of always seeing the curtain extended, I asked my guide when it would be raised.
“Never,” he replied. “The judges in this court as are invisible as the divinity; they render their judgments; the clerk you see outside writes them down; there is a ten minute interval between the pronouncement of one judgment and the next, during which the interested parties have the right to go and see the record of the judgment pronounced. The king’s prosecutor, who is also outside the curtain, facing the clerk, has the right to order the policing of the hearing, and has a copy of the judgments made in the session made by the clerk; at the end of the session the copy is signed, as well as the register, by both the clerk and the president...”
My guide was still speaking when I heard a loud voice shout: “Silence!” and all the members of the public fell silent. A moment later, another voice, not as loud but very clear, pronounced the words: “Number nine, codenamed Rose, has won his suit against number twenty, codenamed Carnation.”
Ten minutes later, the same voice pronounced: “Number thirty, codenamed Tulip, has won his suit against number fifteen, codenamed Jasmine.” Ten minutes later, again, the same voice pronounced: “Number fifty, codenamed Wallflower, has won his suit against number sixty, codenamed Tuberose”—and so on.
When the session had finished, I asked the man with me to explain that enigma; I had not heard any speeches, as in my own time, and did not know how to interpret what I had seen and heard.
“Justice is no longer rendered as it once was,” he told me. “Advocates no longer conduct the civil cases of their clients by means of pleas and procedures; the judges are no longer known. Suits are classified; in the first class are those whose value does not exceed two or three hundred francs; in the second class are those between five hounded and a thousand francs, in the third, those between one thousand and ten thousand; in the fourth between ten thousand and a hundred thousand. Any case that surpasses in interest the range of the fourth class is treated in the same manner as those in that class.
“In the first class, the two parties can each only present one document containing two written sheets on stamped paper taxed at three francs a sheet; in the second, a document of four sheets taxed at six francs a sheet; in the third, a document of eight sheets taxed at eight francs a sheet; and finally, in the fourth, a document of ten sheets taxed at twelve francs a sheet. The parties have a week after the assignation to submit their documents; those documents contain a number in the margin, under the name of a flower, which is the badge of the contending party. A duplicate of the number and the badge are added to the document on a piece of blank paper; the two documents and their badges are brought together; the whole is sealed by the interested parties, who send the packet to the president of the tribunal, who is required to send it to the minister of justice within twenty-four hours.
“In his turn, the minister of justice sends the documents for and against, within a week of receipt, to a distant tribunal at least thirty leagues away from the one in which the suit originates, known to him alone, and relative to which he maintains secrecy. The tribunal to which the case has been sent has a month in which to judge it. When the judgment has been pronounced, the documents are given to the clerk and sealed with the tribunal’s seal, and a copy of the judgment sent to the minister conceived in these terms: Number nine, codenamed Rose, has won his case against number twenty, codenamed Carnation. The minister then takes the badges of the two contending parties, has the judgment transcribed under the two badges, sends a copy of that transcription within a week to the tribunal where the case originated, and has the transcribed judgment sealed again under the two badges, which are immediately deposited in the ministry’s archives. The tribunal to which the decision is sent is obliged to pronounce it within a week.
“When it is a matter of properties resulting from titles for greater or lesser areas of land, each party joins his title-deed to his document on a sheet or half-sheet of stamped paper; the contents of that sheet or half-sheet are certified by the notary, the proprietor of the minute, who adds his signature and his seal. It is the same for all notes signed by debtors to their creditors or money-lenders; the notes are transcribed in their entirety on stamped paper and the signatures of the lenders must be placed beneath those of the borrowers or debtors; the signatures of creditors or money-lenders must be certified as veritable by the notary public of the district—every district has one—with whom the signatures of all money-lenders and individual creditors must be deposited, on penalty of the annulment of the loan or debt; witness-statements and expert reports are subject to the same formality.
“There are, as before, two stages of jurisdiction in civil matters. When one of the parties is not content with the judgment rendered in the first instance, they can lodge an appeal before the tribunal where the suit originated, to which they present their case, and which is required to notify the adverse party, who must respond with
in a week. At the end of the week the tribunal sends the documents back to the ministry of justice; the documents in question can only be augmented by one sheet; they are subject to the same tax and bear the same badge as in the first instance. The ministry, with the same interval, obtains the relevant documents from the tribunal that judged the case, and sends them, along with the grounds for appeal and their rebuttal, to a tribunal at least thirty leagues distant from the one that judged the case, and still with the same distance from the one where the suit originated, which, in its turn, sends its decision, in the same form, back to the ministry of justice, which returns them in the same manner to the tribunal where the suit originated, which, in its turn, with the same forms and delays, pronounces the judgment of the appeal court.
“In that fashion, as you see, justice is good and promptly rendered; the plaintiff does not know his judges; the advocate accelerates the affairs of his clients; that is another benefit of our government, which is eager to prevent abuses. Like the ministers of the altars, the judges are chosen from among the most enlightened and upright men in the nation, without distinction of birth, rank or fortune, because it is considered that one cannot be too knowledgeable or too just to instruct or judge people. Even the priests, who are subject to the new law, can be appointed, if they have the qualities required. Justices of the peace and criminal tribunals have been conserved without any change.
“To accelerate the course of justice, His Majesty has thought it necessary to veil the process and reduce the mechanism, so the royal court and court of cassation have been abolished; all tribunals have been rendered equal and able to judge one another; the ministry of justice alone chooses the appeal courts, in civil and in criminal matters, in the fashion indicated above, which cannot be changed. Criminal courts replace the court of cassation.
“His Majesty names for life one candidate per département to replace the great patriarch in case of decease, choosing the candidate from among the most renowned ministers of the altars. Each European power also names a candidate for each province of its kingdom. The list of these candidates is printed and presented to the European Diet, which chooses and names the great patriarch’s successor. That list lasts until it is exhausted, and then it is renewed in the same fashion.
“The great patriarch is a power in Europe; he is a delegate to the European Diet. He is the only elective, because it is considered that one cannot be too pure, too religious toward the divinity and too much a friend of humans to be chief of all the ministers of altars in Europe. The great patriarch is the sole depositors of the decrees of the European Diet. The original of the code of the religion of Europe, that of perpetual peace and that of the liberty of commerce, signed by all the delegates of the powers, composes a single book, which is deposited in the great patriarch’s temple. On the first page of that book one sees the religion, which is represented holding in one hand a ribbon bearing the words Perpetual Peace in Europe, and in the other, a ribbon bearing the words Liberty of Commerce in Europe. Faithful copies of this book are also deposited in all the temples and mosques of the ministers of altars of every power.
“The maires or their deputies are obliged to witness gratuitously the funerals of all the individuals who die in their communes; they register deaths, births and marriages as before. Cemeteries are no longer adjacent to temples; they are places at least two thousand paces from the habitations of communes. Cadavers are no longer taken into temples; it has been recognized that it is insufficiently respectful to the divinity to carry dead bodies into his temples; only the living can enter therein, because only they can sing hymns of gratitude to the Supreme Being who conserved everything.
“Women married to merchants, traders or businessmen no longer have the liberty to separate their property from their husbands’ in order to protect their dowries from the risks of commerce; that ancient custom is regarded as abusive, opening the door to fraud and rapine. Today, the endowed property of the wife, and any that she acquires by succession, donation or otherwise, become the collateral of creditors. The children of a bankrupt father cannot, for fifty years, exercise any branch of commerce; the intention is to punish the crime of bankruptcy even to the second generation. Since that fortunate law, fraudulent bankruptcies are no longer seen, and one no longer sees bankrupts becoming richer than they were before their bankruptcy, as was often seen before.
“The law that restricted the number of notaries in each commune and advocates at tribunals has been repealed as destructive of competition and talent, and contrary to the public good, to the interests of which it is injurious, depriving many young people of a status to which they have the right after receiving a certificate of qualification after spending three years in the office of an advocate, solicitor or notary. The list of candidates in that party is drawn up by the council of the commune, presented to the electors during their assembly, but the electors to the députés, and by them to the sovereign, who chooses from the lists, makes the appoints and has provisions delivered.”
My guide then took me to the capital of the kingdom. I saw written on the door of St. Denis, in large letters: Tomb of Kings. “They alone,” my companion told me, “are buried in that place; the chief of each nation are respected throughout Europe; they all have similar tombs. Since the plan of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre has been carried out, and they have agreed a single religion and the liberty of commerce, they are adored in all nations; all the peoples of Europe regard themselves as brothers, the Salic law has been adopted throughout Europe, the kings are consolidated on their thrones, no longer fearing invasion or dethronement; general peace is a political bond that unites all the nations and attaches them to their chiefs. Everyone gains from that fortunate change; agriculture, industry and commerce of every sort have redoubled their activity; the people enrich themselves in laboring; they are happy, and the chiefs find their people more willing to pay taxes.
“The day when that fortunate convention was adopted and signed by the delegates of the powers is celebrated every year throughout Europe; that celebration lasts for three consecutive days. The needs of the state have diminished in each power, and taxes with them; our king no longer has more than ten thousand regular troops, eight thousand of whom are infantry and two thousand cavalry. A hundred cavalrymen and two hundred infantrymen compose his guard. Each power has reduced its military force; having much less expense therein, all the kings have come to the aid of their peoples, diminishing taxes proportionately every year.”
“Those are very wise reforms!” I exclaimed. “There are, then, no longer any wars, no longer any lost crops trampled under the hooves of horses, cut while green to serve as their pasture; no more towns subjected to contribution to slake the avarice of warriors; no more massacres of men, women and children by ferocious soldiers, no more pillage, no more rape, no more burning, no more crimes of every sort, no more famine, no more plague, no more kings dethroned by rogues and ambitious men who want to take their place; in sum, no more brigands of any sort recompensed for their crimes by impunity.”
“The human species is better directed,” he told me. “It is occupied in agriculture, in commerce and industry of every sort. A man who has made a discovery useful to society, of whatever kind, receives from the government a patent if invention with an ad hoc medal and a small annual pension. He no longer has, as before, the exclusive privilege of practicing the objects of his invention for several years; his discovery falls into the public domain, which profits from it; that advances the perfection of the arts by as much, and does not harm artists.
“In sum, the same order exists today between the powers that compose Europe as in the constellations that illuminate that beautiful art of the world; the order is immutable in the globes that illuminate the world and in the governments of Europe; they all have the same operation, the same laws, the same religion, and they work toward the same goal, the happiness of the human race. Providence had doubtless desired that reform, since it has inspired certain humans with analogous ideas�
��for it is necessary not to dissimulate; the ideas are not ours, they are inspired in us by an invisible power that we cannot resist, and we are only satisfied when we have manifested those ideas; the good that must result therefrom is the sole recompense that pays those who have the courage to render them public.”
“The sweetest music is not more agreeable to me than your words have been. I have only one regret, that of being too old; I shall not be able to enjoy for a long time the harmonic system of Europe But what do I see? A superb column in a little garden, in front of a house of modest appearance—what does that column signify?”
“You shall find out,” said my companion. “I know the owner of that house; he will explain everything to you.”
We entered the house; the master took us to the column. The column was made of hard stone, twelve feet high, with four faces in its base; it was borne by twelve steps representing the twelve months of the year; four pots of flowers placed and the four corners of the fifth step, descending from the foot of the column, represented the month of May, by the flowers born in that month, with which the pots were filled.
“It was a man without children,” the inhabitant of the house told me, “who wanted that column to be erected after his death, for the sustenance of the poor. He made provision in his will to give to the poor of his commune on the first of every month twelve hundred livres of white bread, which made twelve livres each; he affected all the revenue of his land to the service of the rent; the fund cannot be sold except to the charge of the service of that rent, which is inalienable by nature, nor transportable to any hospice or house of charity. On the first of every month the testamentary executor is obliged to place four pots of flowers at the four corners of the step that represents the month, filled with flowers of the month, to open the garden and make the distribution in question, at midday precisely, to the hundred poor people, half of the chosen by the minister of the altars of the commune, half by the testamentary executor. The meaning of the testament is inscribed in the four faces of the base of the column. On the first, on the eastern side, is written: Column elevated by N ; on the second, the northern: For the support of a hundred poor people of the commune; on the third, the western: To which will be distributed, in equal portions, twelve hundred livers of white bread; and final, on the fourth, the southern: On the first of every month of the year, in perpetuity.
The Aerial Valley Page 17
