"A protest and intimation of bodily restraint are generally carried about by sheriffs' officers, and charged by law, the first, 4f. 35c., the second, 4f. 70c.; for these, however, the officers usually demand, for the former, 10f. 40c., for the second, 16f. 40c.; thus illegally claiming from the unfortunate victims of law 26f. 80c., for that which is fixed by that very law at 9f. 50c.
"For an arrest, the legal charge is, including stamp and registering, 3f. 50c.; coach-hire, 5f.; for arrest and entry in the prison books, 60f. 25c.; office dues, 8f. Total, 76f. 75c. A bill of the usual scale ordinarily charged by sheriffs' officers, now lying before us, shows that these allowances by law are magnified by the extortion of the officers into a sum of about 240f., instead of the 76f. they are alone entitled to claim."
The same journal says: "Sheriffs' officer —— has been to our office, requesting us to correct an article which appeared in one of our numbers, headed, 'A woman hung.' 'I did not hang the woman!' observed he, angrily. We did not assert that he did, but, to prevent any further misapprehension, content ourselves with reprinting the paragraph in question: 'A few days ago, a sheriffs' officer, named ——, went to the Rue de la Lune, to arrest a carpenter, who dwelt there. The man, perceiving him from the street, rushed hastily into his house, exclaiming, "I am a ruined man! The officers are here to arrest me!" His wife, at these words, hastened to secure the door; while the carpenter ran to a room on the top of the house, to conceal himself. The officer, finding admittance refused, went and fetched a magistrate and a blacksmith; the door was forced, and, on proceeding up-stairs, the woman was found hanging in her own bedchamber. The officer did not allow himself to be diverted from the pursuit by the sight of the corpse; he continued his search, and at length discovered the husband in his hiding-place. "I arrest you!" cried the bailiff. "I have no money!" replied the man. "Then you must go to prison." "Let me at least bid my wife adieu!" "It is not worth while waiting for that,—your wife is dead! She has hung herself!"' Now, M. —— (adds the journal we have quoted), what have you to say to that? You see we have merely copied your own statement upon oath, in which you have detailed all these frightful circumstances with horrible minuteness!"
The same journal also cites two or three hundred similar facts, of which the following may serve as a specimen: "The expenses upon a note of hand for 300f. have been run up by the sheriffs' officers to 964f.; the debtor, therefore, who is a mere artisan, with a family of five children, has been detained in prison for the last seven months!"
The author of this work had a double reason for borrowing thus largely from the pages of the "Pauvre Jacques." In the first place, to show that the horrors of the last chapter are far below reality in their painful details. And secondly, to prove that, if only viewed in a philanthropic light, the allowing such a state of things to go on (namely, the exorbitant and illegal fees both demanded and exacted by certain public functionaries), frequently acts as a preventive to the exercise of benevolence, and paralyses the hand of charity. Thus, were a small capital of 1000f. collected among kind-hearted individuals, three or four honest, though unfortunate, artisans might be released from a prison and restored to their families, by employing the above-named sum in paying the debts of such as were incarcerated for amounts varying from 250 to 300f.! But when the original debt is increased threefold by the excessive and illegal expenses, even the most charitable recede from the good work of delivering a fellow creature, from the impression that two-thirds of their well-intentioned bounty would only go into the pockets of pampered sheriffs' officers and their satellites. And yet no class of unfortunate beings stand more in need of aid and charitable assistance than the unfortunate class we have just been speaking of.
CHAPTER XIV.
RIGOLETTE.
Louise, the daughter of the lapidary, was possessed of more than ordinary loveliness of countenance, a fine, tall, graceful person, uniting, by the strict regularity of her faultless features and elegance of her figure, the classic beauty of Juno with the lightness and elegance assigned to the statue of the hunting Diana. Spite of the injury her complexion had received from exposure to weather, and the redness of her well-shaped hands and arms, occasioned by household labour,—despite even the humble dress she wore, the whole appearance of Louise Morel was stamped with that indescribable air of grace and superiority Nature sometimes is pleased to bestow upon the lowly-born, in preference to the descendant of high lineage.