But the matter of ignorance in reference to the case to be heard by the jurors may be, and of late in many instances has been, carried to an unreasonable extent. In many cases which are of public interest, and which are of sufficient importance to be discussed by the press, familiarity with what has been said is deemed sufficient to bar an individual from sitting as a juror during their trial. As a result of this it is often difficult to secure a jury in a case which has excited much comment, and which has been the subject of discussion by the press. The mere fact that a man has read newspaper accounts of events that have transpired, or even editorial comments upon them, does not necessarily disqualify him for being an impartial juror.
All intelligent men are to a greater or less extent readers of newspapers, and to hold that knowledge thus obtained disqualifies one for sitting as juror when the case is brought to trial, virtually excludes men of even ordinary intelligence from the jury-box, and, too, in those very cases where they are most needed in order to secure just and righteous verdicts. The legitimate fruits of the exclusion of the reading classes from sitting as jurors are such verdicts as that rendered recently by a Fayette County (Pa.) jury, in the Dukes trial, where, disregarding the charge of the judge,—the evidence set forth,—the opinion of an entire community,—the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The whole country was horrified and disheartened, that a man clearly guilty could under this system be cleared. Such outrages on right and justice are sure to result whenever ignorance takes the place of intelligence in the jury-box, and will sooner or later bring the whole matter of trial by jury into disrepute. It is not intelligence, but ignorance, prejudice, and partiality that should be excluded. The only question in this regard which a jury when impaneled should be expected to answer is whether, under their oaths, they can take their place on the jury and render an honest and impartial verdict.
There is another grave danger in this custom. Not only are the non-reading and ignorant classes disqualified for rendering a fair and intelligent verdict, but they are for the most part sadly deficient in principle and integrity, and hence are more readily corrupted, more easily bribed, and more likely to be influenced by designing lawyers than men of average intelligence and general information. The numerous acquittals of individuals adjudged guilty by the popular verdict, and in the very face of the evidence adduced, is proof positive that in such instances the twelve men in the jury-box are in no sense the custodians of the law or the mouthpiece of justice. If, for any reason, intelligence is ruled out of the jury-box, the jury system will cease to be regarded as a reliable instrument for the administration of justice.
Stevens’s Madame De Staël.
This book, the American edition of which was published in two handsome volumes by the Harpers, some little time ago, will perpetuate the fame of a woman of regal intellect and immense influence upon her times. In Byron’s judgment she was “the greatest woman in literature;” Macaulay called her “the greatest woman of her times;” and many others, whose opinions carry weight, could be quoted as giving her a foremost place among the worlds gifted women. The biography fills a want; for, while numerous pens have written of this woman, there has been before no adequate portrayal of her career. The author, Dr. Abel Stevens, whose reputation as a writer in history and biography is high and secure, has for some years been living in Switzerland, where he has enjoyed excellent facilities for the preparation of the work, “Madame De Staël, a Study of her Life and Times, the first Revolution and the first Empire.” The work is called, and in its completeness it will probably remain, the standard biography of this illustrious woman, and will need no successor. It shows great research and pains-taking, as well as a skilled literary hand. A complete, much-needed biography, it is more than this, it is a valuable history of that marvelous epoch in the annals of France. It is of great value for its sketches of other eminent persons, contemporaries of its subject, and for its intelligent narration of events as sensational as any ever witnessed upon the theater of Europe.
Madame De Staël lived from 1766 to 1817. Her full maiden name was Anne Louise Germaine Necker. Her father was the great Necker, for a time Minister from Geneva at the French court, and afterward the powerful French Minister of Finance. Her mother was the daughter of a Swiss pastor, and a woman of beautiful person and fine accomplishments, with whom, while Mademoiselle Curchod, the historian Gibbon fell in love, and for whom he always cherished a tender regard. The love of Madame De Staël for her father approached idolatry, but for her mother was much less ardent. She was an only child, and received a careful training and the highest advantages. She was born and died in Paris, and this was the place always where she loved best to live, though for many years, through the persecutions of Napoleon, she was an exile from France. As a child she was very precocious; a girl in her mother’s salon, she astonished the people by the brilliancy of her conversation; she very early tried her hand at writing, and showed marked literary gifts; when fifteen years old, she had the maturity which might be looked for in a young woman of twenty-five. At the age of twenty she became the wife of Baron De Staël. The baron was thirty-seven. It was a marriage of convenance, such as in France were customary, and on her part, at least, there was no love. For a number of years they lived apart, but she went to the baron in his last illness and remained with him until his death. When she was forty-five years old, she made a second marriage, with a young French officer, Rocca by name, twenty-two years her junior. Strange as it may seem, this was a true love-match, and the two, notwithstanding the disparity of age, lived together in great devotion and happiness until her death. The marriage was secret, and was known to but few persons in the life-time of Madame De Staël. Of three children, offspring of the first marriage, one was killed in a duel while the mother lived, and the others survived her and did her honor. A son was also born from the second marriage.
What eventful years were those for France in which this woman lived. If one with such a theme as our author can not make an interesting story, the fault surely is not with his subject-matter. Madame De Staël saw her father, whom she idolized, the idol of the French people; she saw him—and it was a proud time in her life—after the jealousy of rival ministers had brought about his retirement from the office of finance minister, recalled by the king, and welcomed back to his old position by such demonstrations of popular homage and devotion as have been accorded to but few; and later she saw him again seeking the retirement of his Swiss home execrated by the same fickle populace of France. She saw the downfall of Louis XVI. and deplored this ill-starred monarch’s fate, whose head was one of the trophies of the guillotine. She saw the First Revolution with its horrors, and ardent champion as she was for human freedom and popular rights, her heart was sickened at the spectacle. She saw the hero of Corsica arise from nothingness to be the terror of all Europe; the strides of his ambition she witnessed until he stood the first monarch of the world, with crowns in his hands as baubles to give away. She saw his “vaulting ambition o’erleap itself” at last, and the tide of his fortunes reversed; the exile of Elba and that of St. Helena passed before her view, and while she rejoiced to see Napoleon crushed, she sorrowed as a true French woman over the humiliation of France. She saw another Louis upon the French throne, and was his trusted adviser and friend. Napoleon she hated with all her soul. Acknowledging his consummate military genius, she loathed him as a monster of selfishness—a tyrant whose god was self. The emperor feared her pen in the cause of popular freedom, and after trying in vain to gain her support he showed in various ways his malice toward her. He banished her from France at length, and the story of her years of exile—bravely borne with all its hardships, though she could have escaped it by writing in praise of Napoleon—is very affecting. Dr. Stevens uses as the appropriate motto of his book the saying of Lamartine: “This woman was the last of the Romans under this Cæsar, who dared not destroy her, and could not abase her.”
And mighty was the influence of Madame De Staël upon her age. To say that it was equaled by that of no other woman is not to say enough. Kings and queens were her personal friends. With chief men and women in different lands—statesmen and warriors, persons distinguished in science and letters—her relations were intimate. They admired her, and bowed to her genius. In political affairs her influence was great, and in the world of letters she made an impression deep and abiding. As a writer, perhaps no woman of any time will be accorded equal rank with her, unless some would concede it to George Eliot and Mrs. Browning. Her best known works are “Delphine,” “Allemagne,” and “Corinne,” though others have had a wide reading and been much admired. The “Allemagne” produced a profound impression. Great as this woman was as a writer, some have freely said she was greater as a conversationalist. With wonderful brilliancy she shone in the salon. Her own salon in Paris would be thronged by distinguished men and women, and the great attraction was herself. She would dazzle with her eloquence, as she discussed various questions, some of them deep questions of philosophy and religion. Her love of society was a passion. Her power of affection was mighty, and her attachment to her friends most strong. When the light of her life was quenched at the comparatively early age of fifty-one, the number was large who mourned, not simply for a rare woman of genius lost to the world, but for a friend, true, sympathetic, loving, whose place could not be filled. More than one have said of her that she was a man in intellect—though we do not make the remark our own—but it is certain she was a woman in heart. Let our readers turn to the new and best record of her life, which Dr. Stevens has given us, and find delight from its perusal.