The Last Days of a Condemned

Victor Hugo
(excerpt, ca. 1875)

But do you seriously suppose you are making an example, when you take the life of a poor wretch, in the most deserted part of the exterior Boulevards, at eight o’clock in the morning?

Do not you see then, that your public executions are done in private? That fear is with the execution, and not among the multitude? One is sometimes tempted to believe, that the advocates for capital punishment have not thorougly considered in what it consists. But place in the scales, against any crime whatever, this exorbitant right, which society arrogates to itself, of taking away that which it did not bestow: that most irreparable of evils!

The alternatives are these: First, the man you destroy is without family, relations, or friends, in the world. In this case, he has received neither education nor instruction; no care has been bestowed either on his mind or heart; then, by what right would you kil this miserable orphan? You punish him because his infancy trailed on the ground, without stem, or support; you make him pay the penalty of the isolated position in which you left him! you make a crime of his misfortune! No one taught hiim to know what he was doing; this man lived in ignorance: the fault was in his destiny, not himself. You destroy on who is innocent.

Or, secondly,--the man has a family; and then do you think the fatal stroke wounds him alone?--that his father, his mother, or his children will not suffer by it? In killing him, you vitally injure all his family: and thus again you punish the innocent!

Blind and ill-directed penalty; which, on whatever side it turns, strikes the innocent!

Imprison for life this culprit who has a family: in his cell he can still work for those who belong to him. But how can he help them from the depth of the tomb? And can you reflect without shuddering, on what will become of those young children, from whom you take away their father, their support? Do you not feel that they must fall into a career of vice? In the Colonies, when a slave is condemned to public execution, there are a thousand francs of indemnity paid to the proprietor of the man! What, you compensate a master, and you do not indemnify a family! In this country, do you not take the man from those who possess him? Is he not, by a much more sacred tie than master and slave, the property of his father, the wealth of his wife, the fortune of his children?

I have already proved your law guilty of assassination; I have now convicted it of robbery! And then another consideration. Do you consider the soul of this man? Do you know what state it is, that you dismiss it so hastily?

This may be called “sentimental reasoning,” by some disdainful logicians, who draw their arguments only from their minds. I often prefer the reasonings of the heart; and certainly the two should always go together. Reason is on our side, feeling is on our side, and experience is on our side. In those States where punishment by death is abolished, the mass of capital crime has yearly a progressive decrease. Let this fact have its weight.

I do not advocate, however, a sudden and complete abolition of the penatly of death, such as was so heedlessly attempted in the Chamber of Deputies. On the contrary, I desire every precaution, every experiment, every suggestion of prudence: besides, in addition to this gradual change, I would have the whole penal code examined, and reformed; and time is a great ingredient requisite to make such a work complete. But indepently of a partial abolition of death in cases of forgery, incendiarism, minor thefts, et cetera, I would wish that, from the present time, in all the greater offences, the Judge should be obliged to propose the following question to the Jury: “Has the accused acted from Passion or Interest?” And in case the Jury decide “the accused acted from Passion,” then there should be no sentence of death.

Let not the opposite party deceive themselves; this question of the penalty of death gains ground every day. Before long, the world will unanimously solve it on the side of mercy. During the past century, punishments have become gradually milder: the rack has disappeared, the wheel has disappeared; and now the Guillotine is shaken. This mistaken punishment will leave France; and may it go to some barbarous people,--not to Turkey, which is becoming civilized, not to the savages, for they will not have it; but let it descend some steps of the ladder of civilization, and take refuge in Spain, or Russia!

In the early ages, the social edifice rested on three columns, Superstition, Tyranny, Cruelty. A long time ago a voice exclaimed, “Superstition has departed!” Lately another voice has cried, “Tyranny has departed!” It is now full time that a third voice shall be raised to say, “The Executioner has departed!”

Thus the barbarous usages of the olden times fall one by one; thus Providence completes modern regeneration. To those who regret Superstition, we say, “GOD remains for us!” To those who regret Tyranny, we say, “OUR COUNTRY remains!” But to those who could regret the Executioner we can say nothing.

Let it not be supposed that social order will depart with the scaffold; the social building will not fall from wanting this hideous keystone. Civilization is nothing but a series of transformations. For what then do I ask your aid? The civilization of penal laws. The gentle laws of CHRIST will penetrate at last into the Code, and shine through its enactments. We shall look on crime as a disease, and its physicians shall displace the judges, its hospitals displace the Galleys. Liberty and health shall be alike. We shall pour balm and oil where we formerly applied iron and fire; evil will be treated in charity, instead of in anger. This change will be simple and sublime.

THE CROSS SHALL DISPLACE THE GIBBET.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and revolutionary.

This essay is reprinted from Essays on Humanity (Walter J. Black, 1928).