guilt was evident to the jury, who pronounced them not guilty rather than
condemn them to a punishment which was thought too severe. Besides,
their leniency had another ground, which was, that the people being
ignorant of the new law were not aware of the penalties attached to
particular offences. I remember that a man who was accused of stealing a
cloak at Hamburg justified himself on the ground that he committed the
offence in a fit of intoxication. M. Von Einingen, one of the jury,
insisted that the prisoner was not guilty, because, as he said, the
Syndic Doormann, when dining with him one day, having drunk more wine
than usual, took away his cloak. This defence per Baccho was completely
successful. An argument founded on the similarity between the conduct of
the Syndic and the accused, could not but triumph, otherwise the little
debauch of the former would have been condemned in the person of the
latter. This trial, which terminated so whimsically, nevertheless proves
that the best and the gravest institutions may become objects of ridicule
when suddenly introduced into a country whose habits are not prepared to
receive them.

The Romans very wisely reserved in the Capitol a place for the gods of
the nations they conquered. They wished to annex provinces and kingdoms
to their empire. Napoleon, on the contrary, wished to make his empire
encroach upon other states, and to realise the impossible Utopia of ten
different nations, all having different customs and languages, united
into a single State. Could justice, that safeguard of human rights, be
duly administered in the Hanse Towns when those towns were converted into
French departments? In these new departments many judges had been
appointed who did not understand a word of German, and who had no
knowledge of law. The presidents of the tribunals of Lilbeck, Stade,
Bremerlehe, and Minden were so utterly ignorant of the German language
that it was necessary to explain to them all the pleadings in the