He arrives, exhausted with
fatigue, dying with hunger; by chance he discovers that a sum of money is
deposited in a neighboring house; he yields to temptation, he forces a
window, opens a desk, steals one hundred francs, and flies. He is arrested,
is a prisoner. He will be tried, condemned. For a second crime, fifteen or
twenty years of hard labor and the pillory is what awaits him. He knows it.
This formidable punishment he deserves. Property is sacred. He who, at
night, breaks open your doors to take your goods ought to undergo a severe
penalty. In vain shall the culpable plead the want of work, poverty, his
position so difficult and intolerable, the wants which this position, this
condition of a liberated convict, imposes on him. So much the worse; there
is but one law. Society, for its peace and safety, will and ought to be
armed with boundless power, and without pity repress these audacious
attacks upon others.
Yes, this wretch, ignorant and stupid, this corrupted and despised convict,
has merited his fate. But what shall he then deserve who, intelligent,
rich, educated, surrounded by the esteem of all, clothed with an official
character, will steal--not to eat, but to satisfy some fanciful caprice, or
to try the chance of stock-jobbing? Will steal, not a hundred francs, but a
hundred thousand francs--a million? Will steal, not at night, at the peril
of his life, but tranquilly, quite at his ease, in the sight of all? Will
steal, not from an unknown who has placed his money under the safeguard of
a lock, but from a client, who has placed from necessity his money under
the safeguard of the public officer, whom the law points out--imposes on
his confidence? What terrible punishment will be deserve, then, who,
instead of stealing a small sum almost from necessity, will steal wholesale
a considerable amount? Would it not be a crying injustice not to apply to
him a similar punishment to that bestowed on the poor villain pushed to
extremities by misery, to theft by want? Get along! says the law.
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