And once a stable social equilibrium is reached, all men tend to support
judicial courts, if judicial courts exist, from an instinct of
self-preservation. This has been amply shown by French experience, and
it is here that French history is so illuminating to the American mind.
Before the Revolution France had semi-political courts which conduced to
the overthrow of Turgot, and, therefore, wrought for violence; but more
than this, France, under the old regime, had evolved a legal profession
of a cast of mind incompatible with an equal administration of the law.
The French courts were, therefore, when trouble came, supported only by
a faction, and were cast aside. With that the old regime fell.
The young Duke of Chartres, the son of Egalite Orleans, and the future
Louis Philippe, has related in his journal an anecdote which illustrates
that subtle poison of distrust which undermines all legal authority, the
moment that suspicion of political partiality in the judiciary enters
the popular mind. In June, 1791, the Duke went down from Paris to
Vendome to join the regiment of dragoons of which he had been
commissioned colonel.
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