PASTORET. PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR, 1790. (Chap. xxi. Vol. 2.) A LIST OF CAPITAL OFFENCES IN FRANCE, IN THE YEAR, 1790. BEHOLD a list of the crimes punishable by death, and even this does not comprehend the whole. 1. Enormous blasphemy. 2. Composing works against religion. 3. Or causing them to be written. 4. Or printing them. 5. Sacrilege joined to superstition and impiety. 7. Pulling down or destroying crosses and images. 8. Every act of scandal and impious sedition. 9. Heretics assembling with arms. 10. Heretical preaching. 11. Witchcraft and magic. 12. Regicide. 13. Outrage against the persons of the king's children. 14. Leagues and associations. 15. Enlisting Soldiers unlawfully. 16. Plots. 17. Not disclosing a plot. 18. To parley with an enemy, without the consent of the commanders of the army. 19. Omitting to inform the commanders of a letter or message received from a prince, or nobleman belonging to the enemy. 20. To levy troops without permission from the king. 21. Unlicensed assemblies under any pretence whatever. 22. To wear armour, carry arms, arquebuses, &c. not being ordered into garrison, or on the king's service. 23. Screening or favoring those who have carried arms unlawfully. 24. Desertion. 25. Collecting arms for horse or foot soldiers. 26. Buying without permission, more powder, shot or matches, than is wanted for the necessary defence of one's house. 27. Casting ordnance, or having it in possession without leave. 28. To fortify castles, or to seize on those already fortified. 29. Counterfeiting the current coin. 30. Circulating counterfeit coin, or introducing it into the kingdom. 31. Clipping of coin. 32. Buying the clippings 33. Coiners delivering Coin below the standard; too light, or imperfect in other respects. 34. Receivers and paymasters, who knowingly distribute counterfeit money. 35. Bankers who fail to cut in the presence of the seller, the pieces of gold and silver coin which they have bought. 36. To carry more gold or silver out of the kingdom, than is necessary for the voyage. 37. Foreigners, or even natives, who deal in coin at a price above its value, if they buy it to export, or for the use of forgers. 38. Locksmiths, blacksmiths, and other workers in iron, who shall have made utensils or tools for coining, even when the intention is unknown to them. 39. Those who shall have engraved dies, and other instruments used in the fabrication of specie, without permission of the officers of the mint. 40. Carriers who knowingly convey the instruments used in coining, without informing the solicitors-general or surveyors. 41. Clerks of the general and particular receivers offices, having the managemeut of public affairs, who embeźzle more than three thousand livres. 42. Treasurers, receivers and other overseers, embezzling the public money. 43. Extortion, under certain circumstances. 44. To abuse and insult magistrates, officers, door-keepers or bailiffs in the execution of justice. 45. Receiving or concealing a person condemned to death. 46. Breaking prison, in certain cases. 47. Wilful murder. 48. To associate with murderers, under any pretence what ever. 49. The plotting to kill, injure or abuse any one, although it be not carried into effect. 50. Highway robbery. 51. Theft with burglary. 52. House breaking. 53. Theft in the king's palaces, without any regard to the value of the goods stolen. 54. Robbery in the Banks. 55. Robbers of a church and their accomplices, according to the exigence of the case. 56. Those who associate with thieves. 57. Those who conceal or receive stolen goods, when the theft deserves death. 58. Nightly robbery with arms. 59. Sometimes nightly robbery with ladders. 60. Robbery by pick-locks. 61. The crime of improperly detaining a person according to circumstances. 62. A galley slave mutilating himself. 63. Taking poison whether it prove mortal or not. 64. To make or distribute poisonous compositions. 65. To know that they have been asked for or given, and not to inform the solicitor general, or his deputy, according to circumstances and the exigences of the case. 66. Duelling. 67. Arson. 68. Parricide. 69. Incest in a direct line. 70. Incest, by ecclesiastical law. 71. Rape. 72. Forcible abduction. 73. Seduction, according to circumstances. 74. Confining young women by means of Letres de catchet, in order to marry or cause them to be married without consent of parents or guardians. 75. Noblemen who force their subjects, or others, to give their daughters or wards in marriage. 76. Concealment of pregnancy. 77. Procuring abortion. 78. Unnatural crime. N 79. A person taking the law into his own hands. 80. Fraudulent bankruptcy. 81. Monopoly of corn. 82. Breach of public trust. 83. Forging letters and scals of chancery. 84. Forging the signature of secretaries of state. 85. Counterfeiting, forging, or altering edicts, royal records, or other royal or public papers. 86. Counterfeiting, or altering papers relating to receivers treasurers, &c. royal or public. 87. Farmers of the revenue of whatever condition, who forge receipts, discharges, accounts, and inventories. 88. Forging a duplicate of a deed. 89. To cast, copy, or counterfeit the marks of the towns, in which there is a magistrate, or of the revenue of farmers. 90. Applying the counter mark in any manner to gold, or silver goods, which have not been taken to be assayed, and marked at the public office. 91. Bearing false witness, which shall endanger the life of the accused.. 92. Smuggling tobacco, printed clothes, &c. by five or more armed persons in company. 93. Officers holding correspondence with smugglers. 94. Smugglers forcing doors, and guard houses of revenue 95. Revenue officers convicted of having been unlicenced 100. The master convicted of having maliciously wrecked 101. Mariners or passengers in vessels who cause any difficulty in the exercise of the catholic religion. 102. A ship writer who makes false entries in his register. 108. A pilot who maliciously causes the destruction of a ves sel. 104. A coast pilot guilty of the same crime. 105. Wasting a ship's liquors, or destroying bread by seamen or others. ship. 106. Causing a leak in a ship. 107. To excite sedition, in order to frustrate the voyage. 108. Striking the master under arms. 1 109. Captains who detain, or suffer any thing to be taken from vessels belonging to the king's subjects, or allies, who lower their sails and produce their charterparties and policies. 110. Sinking captured vessels. 111. Putting prisoners on shore, in an island, or distant country, to conceal the prize. 112 Robbery of cordage, or shipping utensils, and cutting or stealing cables, if it occasion the loss of the ship, or the death of a man. 113. To place false lights upon the sea shore, and in dangerous places, for the purpose of misleading and wrecking the vessels. 114. To attempt the life or goods of persons shipwrecked. 115. Foot or horse soldiers who run after shipwrecks. One hundred and fifteen crimes punished by death*. THOUGHTS ON EXECUTIVE PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1785.. THIS work may, as it seems, be divided into five parts, or propositions:-1st. That punishment to be effectual, should be certain. 2dly. That there are more crimes in England * Notwithstanding this catalogue, it seems that the executions in France were not so numerous as in England. When Mirabeau was in England, he asked a friend, with whom he was dining, if it were true that twenty young men had been executed that morning at Newgate? upon being answered that, if the daily papers asserted it, there was no reason to doubt the assertion; he replied, with great warmth and surprize, “The English are the most merciless people 1 ever heard or read of in my life." See Remarks on the General Orders, &c. by Gilbert Wakefield.- Mirabeau did not live to witness the atrocities committed by his own countrymen. |