“You well know, gentlemen, that where positive evidence of any supposed fact cannot be produced, our judgments must be decided by the balance of probabilities; and it is for this reason that the study of probabilities, and the power of comparing them, has, in a late celebrated essay, been called the Science of Judges.{5} To you, judges of my friend, all the probabilities of his supposed guilt have been stated. Weigh and compare them with those which I shall produce in favour of his innocence. His education, his character, his understanding, are all in his favour. The Count Laniska must be much below the common standard of human virtue and capacity, if, without any assignable motive, he could have committed an action at once so base and so absurd as this of which he is accused. His temper is naturally or habitually open and impetuous, even to extreme imprudence. An instance of this imprudence, and of the manner in which it was pardoned by the king, has been stated to you. Is it probable that the same man should be both ingenuous and mean? Is it probable that the generosity with which he was treated made no impression upon his heart? His heart must, upon this supposition, be selfish and unfeeling. Look up, gentlemen, towards that gallery—look at that anxious mother! those eager friends! Could Laniska’s fate excite such anxiety, if he were selfish and unfeeling? Impossible! But, suppose him destitute of every generous sentiment, you cannot imagine Count Laniska to be a fool. You have been lately reminded that he was early distinguished for his abilities by a monarch, whose penetration we cannot doubt. He was high in the favour of his sovereign: just entering upon life—a military life; his hopes of distinction resting entirely upon the good opinion of his general and his king: all these fair expectations he sacrifices—for what? for the pleasure—but it could be no pleasure—for the folly of writing a single word. Unless the Count Laniska be supposed to have been possessed with an insane desire of writing the word tyrant, how can we account for his writing it upon this vase? Did he wish to convey to France the idea, that Frederick the Great is a tyrant? A man of common sense could surely have found, at least, safer methods of doing so than by engraving it as his opinion upon a vase which he knew was to pass through the hands of the sovereign whom he purposed thus treacherously to insult. The extreme improbability that any man in the situation, with the character, habits, and capacity of Count Laniska, should have acted in this manner amounts, in my judgment, almost to a moral impossibility. I knew nothing more, gentlemen, of this cause, when I first offered to defend Laniska at the hazard of my liberty: it was not merely from the enthusiasm of friendship that I made this offer; it was from the sober conviction of my understanding, founded upon the accurate calculation of moral probabilities.
{Footnote 5: Voltaire—Essai sur les Probabilités en fait de Justice.}
“It has been my good fortune, gentlemen, in the course of the inquiries which I have since made, to obtain further confirmation of my opinion. Without attempting any of that species of oratory which may be necessary to cover falsehood, but which would encumber instead of adorning truth, I shall now, in the simplest manner in my power, lay the evidence before the court.”
The first witness Albert called was the workman who carried the vase to the man at the furnace. Upon his cross-examination, he said that he did not deliver the vase into the hands of the man at the furnace, but that he put it, along with several other pieces, upon a tray, on a table, which stood near the furnace.
Albert.—“You are certain that you put it upon a tray?”
Witness.—“Quite certain.”
Albert.—“What reason have you for remembering that circumstance particularly?”
Witness.—“I remember it, because I at first set this vase upon the ledge of the tray, and it was nearly falling. I was frightened at that accident, which makes me particularly remember the thing. I made room upon the tray for the vase, and left it quite safe upon the tray: I am positive of it.”
Albert.—“That is all I want with you, my good friend.”
The next witness called was the man whose business it was to put the vases into the furnace.