DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0212
172 LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI [BK. 11
This law-suit gave me very great annoyance, and took up
so much of my time that many times I wanted in despair
to prepare to go right away. They have a habit in France
of making very great capital out of any law-suit that they
commence with a foreigner, or with any other person
whom they see may be somewhat careless about litiga-
tion : and directly they begin to see any advantage to be
gained out of the said suit, they find means of selling
it: and some give up the privilege to those who make
a regular practice of this trade of buying causes. They
have another ugly custom, that the men of Normandy,
almost the larger number of them, have for their pro-
fession the giving of false evidence: to such purpose
that those persons who buy the causes, immediately
instruct four of these witnesses, or six, according to
their need, and by means of these the man who is not
warned to produce as many on the opposite side—one
who does not know the custom—immediately has the
case given against him. And to me these said chances
befell: and since it seemed to me a very dishonourable
thing, I appeared at the Great Hall (of Justice) of Paris
to defend my rights; where I saw a Judge, the King's
Lieutenant, of Civil Causes, raised aloft upon a great
tribune. This man was big, gross and fat, and of
most austere aspect. He had around him upon the one
sidd and upon the other many proctors and advocates,
all set in rank to the right and to the left; others kept
coming in, one at a time. And they were stating a case
to the said Judge. Those advocates, who were at the
side, I noticed sometimes talking all at once; wherefore I
stood in astonishment how that marvellous man, the
true image of Pluto, bent his ear with evident attention,
This law-suit gave me very great annoyance, and took up
so much of my time that many times I wanted in despair
to prepare to go right away. They have a habit in France
of making very great capital out of any law-suit that they
commence with a foreigner, or with any other person
whom they see may be somewhat careless about litiga-
tion : and directly they begin to see any advantage to be
gained out of the said suit, they find means of selling
it: and some give up the privilege to those who make
a regular practice of this trade of buying causes. They
have another ugly custom, that the men of Normandy,
almost the larger number of them, have for their pro-
fession the giving of false evidence: to such purpose
that those persons who buy the causes, immediately
instruct four of these witnesses, or six, according to
their need, and by means of these the man who is not
warned to produce as many on the opposite side—one
who does not know the custom—immediately has the
case given against him. And to me these said chances
befell: and since it seemed to me a very dishonourable
thing, I appeared at the Great Hall (of Justice) of Paris
to defend my rights; where I saw a Judge, the King's
Lieutenant, of Civil Causes, raised aloft upon a great
tribune. This man was big, gross and fat, and of
most austere aspect. He had around him upon the one
sidd and upon the other many proctors and advocates,
all set in rank to the right and to the left; others kept
coming in, one at a time. And they were stating a case
to the said Judge. Those advocates, who were at the
side, I noticed sometimes talking all at once; wherefore I
stood in astonishment how that marvellous man, the
true image of Pluto, bent his ear with evident attention,