February 1810.  It had to be retained by the Bourbons, and its principles have worked and are slowly working their way into the law of every nation.  Napoleon was justly proud of this work.  The Introduction of the Code into the conquered countries was, as Bourrienne says, made too quickly.  Puymaigre, who was employed in the administration of Hamburg after Bourrienne left, says, “I shall always remember the astonishment of the Hamburgers when they were invaded by this cloud of French officials, who, under every form, made researches is their houses, and who came to apply the multiplied demands of the fiscal system.  Like Proteus, the administration could take any shape.  To only speak of my department, which certainly was not the least odious one, for it was opposed to the habits of the Hamburgers and annoyed all the industries, no idea can be formed of the despair of the inhabitants, subjected to perpetual visits, and exposed to be charged with contraventions of the law, of which they knew nothing.

“Remembering their former laws, they used to offer to meet a charge of fraud by the proof of their oath, and could not imagine that such a guarantee could be repulsed.  When they were independent they paid almost nothing, and such was the national spirit, that in urgent cases when money was wanted the senate taxed every citizen a certain proportion of his income, the tenth or twentieth.  A donator presided over the recovery of this tax, which was done in a very strange manner.  A box, covered with a carpet, received the offering of every citizen, without any person verifying the sum, and only on the simple moral guarantee of the honesty of the debtor, who himself judged the sum he ought to pay.  When the receipt was finished the senate always obtained more than it had calculated on.” (Puymaigre, pp, 181.)]—­

The long and frequent conversations I had on this subject with the Senators and the most able lawyers of the country soon convinced me of the immense difficulty I should have to encounter, and the danger of suddenly altering habits and customs which had been firmly established by time.

The jury system gave tolerable satisfaction; but the severe punishments assigned to certain offences by the Code were disapproved of.  Hence resulted the frequent and serious abuse of men being acquitted whose guilt was evident to the jury, who pronounced them not guilty rather than condemn them to a punishment which was thought too severe.  Besides, their leniency had another ground, which was, that the people being ignorant of the new law were not aware of the penalties attached to particular offences.  I remember that a man who was accused of stealing a cloak at Hamburg justified himself on the ground that he committed the offence in a fit of intoxication.  M. Von Einingen, one of the jury, insisted that the prisoner was not guilty, because, as he said, the Syndic Doormann, when dining with him one day, having