ROYAL CLEMENCY.
Lewis the thirteenth of France being desirous to sit as judge at the trial of the Duke de la Vallette, assembled, in his cabinet, some members of the Parliament, together with some counsellors of state, to consult on the propriety of such a step. Upon their being compelled by the king to give their opinions concerning the decree for his arrest, the president, De Believre, said, “That he found it very strange that a prince should pass sentence upon one of his subjects; that kings had reserved to themselves the power of pardoning, and left that of condemning to their officers; that his majesty wanted to see before him at the bar, a person, who by his decision was to be hurried away in an hour’s time into another world. That this is what a prince’s countenance, from whence favours flow, should never bear; that his presence alone removed ecclesiastical censures; and that subjects ought not to go away dissatisfied from their prince.” When sentence was passed, the same president said, “This is an unprecedented judgment, and contrary to the example of past ages, to see a king of France, in the quality of a judge, condemning a gentleman to death.”—It may be proper to add, that the sentence was afterwards revoked.
It has always been urged against king James the second, as a proof of the inveterate cruelty of his disposition, that he should have ordered the Duke of Monmouth into his presence, and not pardoned him. Welwood, in his Memoirs, says, that James, in this instance, made an exception to a general rule observed inviolably by kings, “never to allow a criminal, under sentence of death, the sight of his prince’s face, without a design to pardon him.”
The custom of pardoning criminals, by admitting them into the presence of the sovereign, is of very ancient date. When Agag, king of the Amalekites, had been taken prisoner by Saul (1Sam.,xv.20-33) and his life spared by that monarch, contrary to the divine command, and was afterwards brought into the presence of Samuel, he exclaimed “Surely the bitterness of death is past,” evidently in allusion to this custom. But Samuel executed the command ofGod, by putting Agag to death, which ought to have been done by Saul, on taking him prisoner.