He declares himself with great ardour against the use of torture, and by some misinformation charges the English that they still retain it.
It is, perhaps, impossible to review the laws of any country without discovering many defects and many superfluities. Laws often continue, when their reasons have ceased. Laws made for the first state of the society continue unabolished, when the general form of life is changed. Parts of the judicial procedure, which were, at first, only accidental, become, in time, essential; and formalities are accumulated on each other, till the art of litigation requires more study than the discovery of right.
The king of Prussia, examining the institutions of his own country, thought them such as could only be amended by a general abrogation, and the establishment of a new body of law, to which he gave the name of the Code Frédérique, which is comprised in one volume of no great bulk, and must, therefore, unavoidably contain general positions to be accommodated to particular cases by the wisdom and integrity of the courts. To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage.
Of this new system of laws, contracted as it is, a full account cannot be expected in these memoirs; but, that curiosity may not be dismissed without some gratification, it has been thought proper to epitomise the king's plan for the reformation of his courts.
"The differences which arise between members of the same society, may be terminated by a voluntary agreement between the parties, by arbitration, or by a judicial process.
"The two first methods produce, more frequently, a temporary suspension of disputes than a final termination. Courts of justice are, therefore, necessary, with a settled method of procedure, of which the most simple is to cite the parties, to hear their pleas, and dismiss them with immediate decision.
"This, however, is, in many cases, impracticable, and in others is so seldom practised, that it is frequent rather to incur loss than to seek for legal reparation, by entering a labyrinth of which there is no end.
"This tediousness of suits keeps the parties in disquiet and perturbation, rouses and perpetuates animosities, exhausts the litigants by expense, retards the progress of their fortune, and discourages strangers from settling.
"These inconveniencies, with which the best-regulated polities of Europe are embarrassed, must be removed, not by the total prohibition of suits, which is impossible, but by contraction of processes; by opening an easy way for the appearance of truth, and removing all obstructions by which it is concealed.
"The ordonnance of 1667, by which Lewis the fourteenth established an uniformity of procedure through all his courts, has been considered as one of the greatest benefits of his reign.