The Last Day of a Condemned als Hörbuch - kostenlos hören

In the earlier editions of this work, published at first without the name of the author, the following lines formed the sole introduction to the subject:-- “There are two ways of accounting for the existence of the ensuing work. Either there really has been found a roll of papers on which were inscribed, exactly as they came, the last thoughts of a condemned prisoner; or else there has been an author, a dreamer, occupied in observing nature for the advantage of society, who, having been seized with those forcible ideas, could not rest until he had given them the tangible form of a volume.” * * * * * At the time when this book was first published, I did not deem fit to give publicity to the full extent of my thoughts; I preferred waiting to see whether the work would be fully understood, and I find such has been its fate. I may now, therefore, unmask the political and social ideas which I wished to render popular under this harmless literary guise. I avow openly, that “The Last Day of a Condemned” is only a pleading, direct or indirect, for the abolition of punishment by death. My design herein (and what I would wish posterity to see in my work, if its attention should ever be given to so slight a production) is, not to make out the special defence of any particular criminal, such defence being transitory as it is easy: I would plead generally and permanently for all accused persons, present and future; it is the great point of Human Right stated and pleaded before society at large,--that highest judicial court; it is the sombre and fatal question which breathes obscurely in the depths of each capital offence, under the triple envelopes of pathos in which legal eloquence wraps them; it is the question of life and death, I say, laid bare, denuded of the sonorous twistings of the bar, revealed in daylight, and placed where it should be seen, in its true and hideous position,--not in the law courts, but on the scaffold,--not among the judges, but with the Executioner! This is what I have desired to effect. If futurity should award me the glory of having succeeded,--which I dare not hope,--I desire no other crown. I proclaim and repeat it, then, in the name of all accused persons, innocent or guilty, before all courts, juries, or judges. And in order that my pleading should be as universal as my cause, I have been careful, while writing “The Last Day of a Condemned,” to omit any thing of a special, individual, contingent, relative, or modifiable nature, as also any episode, anecdote, known event, or real name,--keeping to the limit (if “limit” it may be termed!) of pleading the cause of any condemned prisoner whatever, executed at any time, for any offence; happy if, with no other aid than my thoughts, I have mined sufficiently into my subject to make a heart bleed, under the æs triplex of a magistrate! happy if I could render merciful those who consider themselves just! happy if I penetrate sufficiently deep within the Judge to reach the man. When this book first appeared, some people thought it was worth while to dispute the authorship. Some asserted that it was taken from an English work, and others that it was borrowed from an American author. What a singular mania there is for seeking the origin of matters at a great distance,--trying to trace from the source of the Nile the streamlet which flows through our village! In this work there is no English, American, or Chinese assistance. I formed the idea of “The Last Day of a Condemned” where you all might form it,--where perhaps you may all have formed it (for who is there that has not reflected and had reveries of “the last day of a condemned”?)--there, on the public walk, the place of execution! It was there, while passing casually during an execution, that this forcible idea occurred to me; and, since then, after those funereal Thursdays of the Court of Cassation, which send forth through Paris the intelligence of an approaching execution, the hoarse voices of the assembling spectators, as they hurried past my windows, filled my mind with the prolonged misery of the person about to suffer, which I pictured to myself, from hour to hour, according to what I conceived was its actual progress. It was a torture which commenced from daybreak, and lasted, like that of the miserable being who was tortured at the same moment, until four o’clock. Then only, when once the ponens caput expiravit was announced by the heavy toll of the clock, I breathed again freely, and regained comparative peace of mind. One day at length--I think it was after the execution of Ulbach--I commenced writing this work; and since then I have felt relieved. When one of those public crimes called legal executions is committed, my conscience now acquits me of participation therein. This, however, is not sufficient; it is well to be freed from self-accusation, but it would be still better to endeavour to save human life. I do not know any aim more elevated, more holy, than that of seeking the abolition of capital punishment; with sincere devotion I join the wishes and efforts of those philanthropic men of all nations who have laboured, of late years, to throw down the patibulary tree,--the only tree which revolution fails to uproot! It is with pleasure that I take my turn to give my feeble stroke, after the all-powerful blow which, seventy years ago, Beccaria gave to the ancient gibbet, which had been standing during so many centuries of Christianity. I have just said that the scaffold is the only edifice which revolutions do not demolish. It is rare indeed that revolutions are temperate in spilling blood; and although they are sent to prune, to lop, to reform society, the punishment of death is a branch which they have never removed! I own, however, if any revolution ever appeared to me capable and worthy of abolishing capital punishment, it was the Revolution of July, 1830. It seemed, indeed, as if it belonged to the merciful popular rising of modern times to erase the barbarous enactments of Louis the Eleventh, of Richelieu, and of Robespierre, and to inscribe at the head of the code, “the inviolability of human life!” 1830 was worthy of breaking the axe of 1793. At one time we really hoped for it. In August, 1830, there seemed so much generosity afloat, such a spirit of gentleness and civilization in the multitude, that we almost fancied the punishment of death was abolished, by a tacit and unanimous consent, with the rest of the evils which had oppressed us. For some weeks confiding and credulous, we had faith in the inviolability of life, for the future, as in the inviolability of liberty. In effect, two months had scarcely passed, when an attempt was made to resolve into a legal reality the sublime Utopia of Cæsar Bonesana. Unfortunately, this attempt was awkward, imperfect, almost hypocritical, and made in a different spirit from the general interest. It was in the month of October, 1830, as may be remembered, that the question of capital punishment was brought before the Chamber of Deputies, and discussed with much talent, energy, and apparent feeling. During two days there was a continued succession of impressive eloquence on this momentous subject; and what was the subject?--to abolish the punishment of death? Yes and No! Here is the truth. Four “gentlemen,”--four persons well known in society,--had attempted in the higher range of politics one of those daring strokes which Bacon calls crimes, and which Machiavel calls enterprises. Well! crime or enterprise,--the law, brutal for all, would punish it by death; and the four unfortunates were prisoners, legal captives guarded by three hundred tri-coloured cockades at Vincennes. What was now to be done? You understand the impossibility of sending to the place of execution, in a common cart, ignobly bound with coarse ropes, seated back to back with that functionary who must not be named,--four men of our own rank,--four “gentlemen”! If there were even a mahogany Guillotine! Well, to settle the matter, they need only abolish the punishment of death; and thereupon the Chamber set to work! Only yesterday they had treated this abolition as Utopian,--as a theory, a dream, a poetic folly. This was not the first time that an endeavour had been made to draw their attention to the cart, the coarse ropes, and the fatal machine. How strange it is that these hideous details acquired such sudden force in their minds! Alas! it was not on account of the general good that they sought to abolish capital punishment, but for their own sakes,--as Deputies, who might become Ministers. And thus an alloy of egotism alters and destroys the fairest social combinations. It is the dark vein in statuary marble, which, crossing everywhere, comes forth