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The criminal judge.

507

THE CRIMINAL LIEUTENANT, is a court magistrate placed at a royal seat in order to be informed of all criminal matters.[...]

He holds an audience twice a week, on Tuesday & Friday, in the criminal chamber, where there are no counsellors, but only one of the King's attorneys; here petty criminal cases are pleaded, those that are merely injurious, disputes and other minor matters that require no investigation. [...]

The criminal lieutenantalways has on hand, within the jurisdiction, a member of the company of the lower officers of the court, along with 10 archers in service at his side dressed in court garb, who are ready to execute his orders then and there; this lower officer of the court must never leave the magistrate's side. There is another also under his command, to enforce decrees; this latter lower officer of the court ordinarily assumes the quality of bailiff, with the power to imprison.

In addition to the bailiff who attends the audiences in the service of the criminal lieutenant, this magistrate has yet three other bailiffs, one on horseback, & the other two with maces, who are officially required to collect him at his hotel, & return him to his hotel; but in fact they are found only at the court entrance where they accompany the criminal lieutenant to his office, & stay by him to receive his orders. [...]

Source: Diderot, Denis et Jean le Rond d'Alembert, "The criminal judge, in l'Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers" (Paris: Briasson et autres, n.d.), tome IX, page 507.

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