The Humbert Trial. colors appearing in the centre of the section assigned to the public, and the atmosphere was stifling. The judges enter at the simple announce ment of "the court," take their places and proceed at once to business, without formal (proclamation or other ceremonial. At the adjournment the President announces the time of the next session, and the judges file out of the chamber in the order of their rank, the audience rising respectfully when they enter and retire. They sit upon a dais slightly raised above the floor, surrounding one end of the chamber, flanked on the right and on the same level by the Advocate-General and at his right by the jury, and on the left by the officers of the court and the prisoners, the latter surrounded by a cordon of police, in full uniform, including their head-cover ings, according to the European custom. In the enclosure thus formed are the members of the bar, the counsel for the prisoners sit ting directly in front of them, and in the rear of the bar the audience. On the dais behind the judges are a dozen or more seats for visitors of note, especially judges of other courts, most of whom were observed on the present occasion to wear the ribbon of some civic distinction. Lawyers on this side of the water may be interested to know that a couple of their brethren, decorated only with American citizenship, were deemed by the President of the tribunal qualified for admission to this select circle. To these vis itors a home-like appearance was imparted to the scene by the easy manners of a swarm of newspaper reporters and sketch-artists, who strol'ed about the bar, in a recess of the proceedings, wearing their hats and chatting affably with the principal personages of the trial. The Court of Assises of Paris is the high est tribunal for the trial of crimes, and is commonly constituted of three judges, selected in rotation from the seven civil chambers. M. Bonnet, who presided at the
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Humbert trial, is a member of the Court of Appeal of Paris, and is understood to have been assigned to this duty for his exceptional ability, especially in the examination of wit nesses. At the opening of the trial, as a precaution against miscarriage by illness or other disaster in view of its importance and probable length, the Advocate-General moved for an additional judge, and two extra jurors to sit with the panel of twelve, and this was ordered. The judges and the Advocate-General are gowned in red, the bar in black, each with a facing of ermine. The horse-hair wig is not an instrumentality of French justice, but a square cap of black silk or velvet, which may be but is not usually worn in court, forms part of the official costume of the judges and advocates. With characteristic French adap tability in the matter of dress, they wear this livery with an easy grace which makes it seem becoming and an appropriate part of themselves; in marked and favorable contrast with the grotesque and monastic appearance presented by the tonsured English judges and barristers in wig and robes. The French judges and lawyers are a fine-looking body of men, usually bearded, well groomed, and appearing like cultivated men of the world. Maitre Labori, the most interesting figure among them, is of medium size, blonde, goldspectacled, Vandyke bearded, quick and in cisive in manner and speech. The jury ap peared to be intelligent and substantial men, comparing favorably with the best of our own. Several were observed busily taking notes of the testimony. Hardly a personage actively concerned in the trial seemed to be beyond middle age. In the French criminal procedure the ac cused and the witnesses are first examined by the juge d'instruction, whose dossier, or synopsis of the testimony, transmitted to the court, constitutes the brief, so to say, upon which the President of the Tribunal, as the presiding judge is called, conducts the trial.
