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49 chapter two the “jurys censitaires,” 1815–1848 The periods of the Bourbon Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48) together marked the era of the “Jurys Censitaires,” when the panels were composed almost exclusively of notables. In addition, at least two major developments distinguished the era. One was that liberal support for the jury as the “palladium of liberty” now reached its peak. Perhaps in no other era was there such a strong consciousness of the political role of the jury, a consciousness heightened by the sharp political controversies of the era. The other major development was the significant expansion of jury-based mitigation of penalties through the law of 1832 on extenuating circumstances. Acquittal rates were quite high during the early years of the period, especially for violent crimes. Moreover, a large proportion of those persons who were convicted were found guilty of lesser charges than the most serious ones brought by the prosecution. Governments of the period, reasoning that such verdicts were often the consequence of jurors’ unwillingness to impose the punishments provided by law, responded primarily through reforms enabling judges and juries to legally reduce penalties for persons found guilty in the cours d’assises. The reform of 1832 (the most important ) did little to reduce the overall acquittal rate through the remainder of the period, but it did result in a sharp decline in extralegal jury devices for leniency, which before had been the only means by which juries could ameliorate the penalties of persons they convicted. Yet it was in this era that the great paradox in the history of the jury system in France first became evident, though only in retrospect. On one hand, and with much notice, a series of measures was enacted to strengthen the jury system, especially during the early years of the July Monarchy. On the other hand, and with much less notice, several forces began to operate that would eventually contribute significantly to the decline of the jury system in France. Massive correctionalization as a response to jury sanction nullification belonged to later eras, but during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy, the practice had its modest beginnings. Correctionalization was initiated by conservative magistrates and governments despite the fact that throughout the Bourbon Restoration and 50 The “Jurys Censitaires” July Monarchy eras, jurors were still almost all notables chosen from lists drawn up by the prefects. Napoleon’s system of selecting most jurors from the electoral colleges was kept,1 which meant that the citizen-judges were ordinarily “censitaires,” men who had to meet the stiff property qualifications for voting. The Constitutional Charter of 1814 limited the franchise to males at least thirty years old who paid three hundred francs or more in direct taxes.2 Such men accounted for only about 90,000 to 100,000 people in all of France.3 In 1831, the new regime of the July Monarchy enacted a law that reduced the taxation requirement for electors from three hundred to two hundred francs and the age requirement from thirty to twenty-five years. But even with the resulting increase in the number of electors, they still accounted for less than 1 percent of the population.4 Yet electors accounted for 90.5 percent of all persons inscribed in the annual jury lists for the years 1828 (when the Ministry of Justice began to publish the composition of the lists in the annual Compte général de l’administration de la justice criminelle) through 1848.5 They were often wealthy landowners.6 Although the Ministry of Justice’s published jury lists for the nation as a whole did not mention the occupations of jurors until 1849, several local studies have shown that during the Restoration and the July Monarchy, a large proportion of jurymen were propriétaires and rentiers. The proportion of these men varied from one-third of all jurors in the Nord department7 to half or more in the Herault,8 Deux-Sevres, Indre, and Sarthe.9 The apparent conservatism of such jurors was reinforced by the fact that many of them were well into middle age. Even though the electoral law of 1831 reduced the age requirement for voting to twenty-five, the minimum age for jury duty remained at thirty.10 But whether it was due to choice by the prefects or to the time it took to accumulate or inherit enough wealth to qualify for jury duty, the average juror of the Restoration and July...

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