

CASSATION. 



81 



gods. Cassandra subsequently spent much of her 

 time in the temple of Apollo, who, becoming ena- 

 moured of her charms, disclosed to her all the secrets 

 of the prophetic art, and, in return, demanded her 

 love. But Cassandra, when her curiosity was satis- 

 fied, refused the dishonourable reward. Apollo, in- 

 censed at this, put a curse on her prophecies, that 

 they should never find belief. She frequently and 

 continually foretold the destruction of Troy, and 

 warned her countrymen in vain against the deceitful 

 horse. When Troy was conquered, and Cassandra, 

 with the other maidens, fled to die temple of Minerva, 

 Ajax tore her from the altar, deflowered the virgin in 

 the sacred place, and dragged her away to the other 

 female slaves, with her hands tied. Oh the division 

 of the booty, she fell to Agamemnon, who carried 

 her, as his slave and mistress, to Mycene. Clytem- 

 nestra murdered them both. Agamemnon had twins 

 by her Teledamus and Pelops. The ancients re- 

 garded this rape of Cassandra as a most infamous 

 atrocity. It has often afforded a subject to poets and 

 sculptors. The Locrians, the countrymen of Ajnx, 

 were afflicted, on this account, for many years, with 

 storms, and their country was desolated with the 

 plague. 



CASSATION ; a term used in the courts on the 

 continent of Europe. It is derived from the middle 

 ages, and signifies the annulling of any act or deci- 

 sion, if the forms prescribed by law have been neg- 

 lected, or if any thing is contained hi it contrary to 

 law. 



Cassation, Court of (Conr de Cassation) ; one of the 

 most important institutions of modern France, which 

 gives to the whole jurisdiction of that country cohe- 

 rency and uniformity, without endangering the neces- 

 sary independence of the courts. It was established 

 by the first national assembly, and has been preserved, 

 in every essential respect, under all the clianges of 

 the revolution and restoration. It lias been main- 

 tained even in those districts which, by their union 

 with France, became subjected to French laws, but, 

 by the peace of Paris, have become part of the Prus- 

 sian monarchy. In France, as early as the reign of 

 Louis IX. (1226 1272), petitions were presented to 

 the king by appellants from the decisions of the 

 courts. In later times, appeals to the parliaments, 

 as the highest courts of the kingdom, came into use, 

 and their decisions were not liable to be set aside by 

 the ordinary forms of law. Yet the parties were al- 

 lowed to dispute even these decisions, if they were 

 founded upon errors of fact, or violated undisputed 

 principles of law; and, by an ordinance of 1302, it 

 was provided, that the parties should be allowed royal 

 letters for the defence of their rights against the de- 

 cisions of the supreme courts (lettres de grace de dire 

 contre les arrets), which should be issued from the 

 chancery (by the chancellor of France). The case 

 was then sent back to the parliament for further in- 

 vestigation, but was examined ami decided in the 

 presence of the king himself, or of a special commis- 

 sioner. An abuse, however, crept in, of transferring 

 these cases to the royal council, where they were de- 

 cided by officers called maitres des requetes. These 

 letters received the name of lettres de proposition 

 d'erreur, and, during the civil commotions at the end 

 of the fourteenth century, began to be more fre- 

 quently presented to the council, which, as soon as 

 one party complained of the partiality of the parlia- 

 ments, transferred the case to its own tor, and olv- 

 structed the course of justice by lettres d'etat (sus- 

 pensions of the process, on the pretext of the ab- 

 sence of one of the parties in the service of the king). 

 Under the chancellor Poyet (1538 1542), this abuse 

 reached its highest pitch ; but the chancellors Olivier 

 (1545 1551) and Hopital (15601568) the two 



great reformers of French jurisprudence, limited the 

 use of these lettres, till, by the ordinance of Blois 

 (1576), all the provisions against the decisions of the 

 parliaments were reduced to these three: the pro- 

 position d'erreur, for an error of feet ; requete civile, 

 to restore the parties to their former condition, on ac- 

 count of the fraud of one of the parties, or the mis- 

 takes of the attorney ; and cassation (petition for 

 abrogation), for violation of forms or settled princi- 

 ples of law. By the famous order of procedure of 

 1667, the first of these provisions was abolished, but 

 the province of the requete civile and cassation was 

 enlarged, and more precisely defined. The former 

 was always brought before the court itself, and de- 

 cided there, the latter before the council. For this 

 purpose in the conseil prive, or cons, des parties, a 

 particular committee was formed, consisting of the 

 chancellor, the four secretaries of state (ministers of 

 the departments), the council of state, and all the 

 maitres des requetes (in 1789, seventy-eight in num- 

 ber). The decisions of this committee were too 

 much influenced by the will of the king and the mini- 

 sters, and by various other circumstances, so that 

 they did not enjoy great respect, though they often 

 exposed acts of great injustice on the part of the 

 parliament, and other high courts. It was therefore 

 abolished in the first national assembly, and its place 

 supplied by an independent court the tribunal of 

 cassation (law of Nov. 27, 1790), which was retained 

 in all the constitutions, and received, under the im- 

 perial government, (1804), the name court of cassa- 

 tion, which it still retains. It consisted, according to 

 the organization of 1800, of forty-eight members, 

 chosen from the senate, on the nomination of the 

 consuls, who elected their own president from among 

 themselves. The appointment of president was after- 

 wards vested in the emperor. In the Charte Consti- 

 tutionnelle of 1814, the right of appointing the coun- 

 sellors was vested in the king ; but they are not re- 

 movable. The minister of justice, or keeper of the 

 seals (garde des sceaux) lias the right of presiding 

 when the tribunal exercises its right of censorship 

 over the cours rcyales : it has, besides, a first presi- 

 dent and three presidents of sections. This court 

 never decides on the main question at issue, but on 

 the competency of the other courts, and on the peti- 

 tions to have their decisions reviewed or annulled, 

 and assigns the question to another court, if a deci- 

 sion is to be set aside for an evident violation of the 

 forms or the principles of the law. For this purpose 

 it is divided into three sections : the section des re- 

 quetes, which decides on the admissibility of the peti- 

 tions in civil cases ; the section de cassation civile ; 

 and the section de cassation criminelle. After a de- 

 cision has been reversed, if a second court decides 

 the same case in the same way, and an appeal is en- 

 tered again, the court of cassation must either request 

 an authentic explanation of the law from the govern- 

 ment, or, at least, all the three sections must unite, 

 to pronounce a second reversal, or cassation ; and if 

 a third decision is the same as the preceding, a re- 

 peated petition for a reversal makes the authentic 

 explanation indispensably necessary. The sentences 

 of the court of cassation are not only recorded in the 

 journals of the courts, the decisions of which are re- 

 versed, but published likewise in an official bulletin, 

 by which consistency and uniformity are preserved. 

 The tribunal of cassation has enjoyed, from its com- 

 mencement, the respect and confidence of France, 

 and numbers among its members several of the most 

 distinguished lawyers ; as the president Henrion de 

 Pansey, the counsellors Chabot, Merlin, and Carnot. 

 For the Prussian province on the Rhine (the dis 

 tricts of Cleves, Dusseldorf, Coblentz, Aix-la-Clia- 

 i pelle, Treves, and Cologne), by the ordinance of 



