She forbids them, still more strongly than is done by the
civil law, to take justice into their own hands; and it is in her
spirit that Christian kings decline doing so in cases of high treason,
and remit the criminals charged with this grave offence into the hands
of the judges, that they may be punished according to the laws and the
forms of justice, which in this matter exhibit a contrast to your mode
of management so striking and complete that it may well make you blush
for shame.
As my discourse has taken this turn, I beg you to follow the
comparison which I shall now draw between the style in which you would
dispose of your enemies, and that in which the judges of the land
dispose of criminals. Everybody knows, fathers, that no private
individual has a right to demand the death of another individual;
and that though a man should have ruined us, maimed our body, burnt
our house, murdered our father, and was prepared, moreover, to
assassinate ourselves, or ruin our character, our private demand for
the death of that person would not be listened to in a court of
justice. Public officers have been appointed for that purpose, who
make the demand in the name of the king, or rather, I would say, in
the name of God. Now, do you conceive, fathers, that Christian
legislators have established this regulation out of mere show and
grimace? Is it not evident that their object was to harmonize the laws
of the state with those of the Church, and thus prevent the external
practice of justice from clashing with the sentiments which all
Christians are bound to cherish in their hearts? It is easy to see how
this, which forms the commencement of a civil process, must stagger
you; its subsequent procedure absolutely overwhelms you.
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