12.7. 7. Of the Crime of High Treason.
It is determined by the laws of
China that whosoever shows any disrespect to the emperor is to be
punished with death. As they do not mention in what this disrespect
consists, everything may furnish a pretext to take away a man's life,
and to exterminate any family whatsoever.
Two persons of that country who were employed to write the court
gazette, having inserted some circumstances relating to a certain fact
that was not true, it was pretended that to tell a lie in the court
gazette was a disrespect shown to the court, in consequence of which
they were put to death.
[14]
A prince of the blood having inadvertently
made some mark on a memorial signed with the red pencil by the emperor,
it was determined that he had behaved disrespectfully to the sovereign;
which occasioned one of the most terrible persecutions against that
family that ever was recorded in history.
[15]
If the crime of high treason be indeterminate, this alone is
sufficient to make the government degenerate into arbitrary power. I
shall descant more largely on this subject when I come to treat
[16]
of the composition of laws.
Footnotes
[14]
Father Du Halde, i, p. 43.
[15]
Father Parennin in the "Edifying Letters."
