THE DEATH PENALTY

By Victor Hugo

Gentlemen of the Jury, if there is a culprit here, it is not my son, it is

myself, it is I! I who for these twenty-five years have opposed capital
punishment, have contented for the inviolability of human life, have
committed this crime for which my son is now arraigned. Here I
denounce myself, Mr. Advocate General! I have committed it under all
aggravated circumstances – deliberately, repeatedly, and tenaciously.
Yes, this old and absurd “lextalionix” – this law of blood for blood – I
have combated all my life – all my life, Gentlemen of the Jury, and while
I have breath, I will continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer,
by all my words and all my votes as a legislator!
I declare it before the crucifix; before the victim of the penalty of
death, who sees and hears us, before the gibbet, to which, two
thousand years ago, for the eternal instruction of the generations the
human law nailed divine!
In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment
and for writing and publishing that for which he is now on trial, --in all
that he has written he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with
which, from his infancy, I have inspired him. Gentlemen, Jurors, the
right to criticize a law, and to criticize it severely – specially a penal –
is placed beside the work under the artisan’s hand.
The right of the journalists is a sacred, as a necessary, as the right of the
legislator. An aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly
implicated in the deed it is at this very moment that from a young
man’s breast escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart a cry of pity and
anguish a cry of horror a cry of humanity. And this cry would punish!
And in the face of appaling facts which I have narrated, you would say
to the guillotine, “Though art right!” and to Pity, saintly Pity, “ Though
art wrong!” Gentlemen of the Jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have
finished. (an excerpt)