BERENGER, ALPHONSE MARIE MARCELLIN THOMAS (1785-1866)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 769 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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BERENGER, ALPHONSE MARIE MARCELLIN THOMAS (1785-1866) , known as Berenger de la Drome, French lawyer and politician, son of a deputy of the third estate of Dauphine to the Constituent Assembly, was born at Valence on the 31st of May 1785. He entered the magistracy and became procureur general at Grenoble, but resigned this office on the restoration of the Bourbons. He now devoted himself mainly to the study of criminal law, and in 1818 published La Justice criminelle en France, in which with

great

GREAT

courage he attacked the

special

SPECIAL

tribunals, provosts' courts or military commissions which were the main

instruments

INSTRUMENTS

of the Reaction, and advocated a return to the old common law and trial by jury. The book had a considerable effect in discrediting the reactionary policy of the government; but it was not until 1828, when Berenger was elected to the chamber, that he had an opportunity of exercising a personal influence on affairs as a member of the group known as that of constitutional opposition. His courage, as well as his moderation, was again displayed during the revolution of 183o, when, as president of the parliamentary commission for the trial of the ministers of Charles X., he braved the fury of the mob and secured a sentence of imprisonment in place of the death penalty for which they clamoured.
His position in the chamber was now one of much influence, and he had a large share in the modelling of the new constitution, though his effort to secure a hereditary peerage failed. Above all he was instrumental in framing the new criminal code, based on more humanitarian principles, which was issued in 1835. It was due to him that, in 1832, the right, so important in actual French practice, was given to juries to find " extenuating. circumstances " in cases when guilt involved the death penalty. In 1831 he had been made a member of the court of appeal (tour de cassation), and the same year was nominated a member of the

academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

of moral and political sciences. He was raised to the peerage in 1839. This dignity he lost owing to the revolution of 1848; and as a politician his career now ended. As a judge, however, his activity continued. He was president of the high courts of Bourges and

Versailles

VERSAILLES

in 1849. Having been appointed president of one of the chambers of the court of cassation, he devoted himself entirely to judicial

work

WORK

until his retirement, under the age limit, on the 31st of May 186o. He now withdrew to his native town, and occupied himself with his favourite

work

WORK

of reform of criminal law. In 1833 he had shared in the foundation of a society for the reclamation of

young

criminals, in which he continued to be actively interested to the end. In 1851 and 1852, on the commission of the

academy

ACADEMY, GREEK
ACADEMY, ROYAL

of moral sciences, he had travelled in France and England for the purpose of examining and comparing the penal systems in the two countries. The result was published in 1855 under the title La Repression penale, comparaison du systeme penitentiaire en France et en Angleterre. He died on the 15th of May 1866.
His son, RENE BERENGER (1830- ), continued the work of his father, and at the outbreak of the revolution of 187o was avocat general of Lyons. He served as a volunteer in the Franco-German War, being wounded at Nuits on the 28th of December. Returned to the National Assembly by the department of Drome, he was for a few days in 1873 minister of public works under

Thiers

THIERS

. He then entered the senate, of which he was vice-president from 1894 to 1897. He founded in 1871 a society for the reclamation of discharged prisoners, and presided over various bodies formed to secure improvement of the public morals. He succeeded Charles Lucas in 1890 at the Academy of Moral and Political Science.

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