BERENGER, ALPHONSE MARIE (1 7 85-1 866), known as Berenger de la Drome, French lawyer and politician, was born at Valence and entered the magistracy. In 1818 he published La Justice criminelle en France, attacking the special courts which were the main instruments of the Reaction and demanding a return to the old customary law and the institution of trial by jury. In 1828 he was elected to the chamber. As president of the parliamentary commission for the trial of the ministers of Charles X. in 183o he secured a sentence of imprisonment in place of the death penalty. He helped to frame the new criminal code, based on humanitarian principles, which was issued in 1835. He secured, in 1832, the right, so important in French procedure, of juries to find "extenuating circumstances." Under Louis Philippe, Berenger received many honours (including a peerage, of which he was deprived in 1848) . After the Revolution of 1 848 his politi cal career ended, but his legal activity continued, and he became president of one of the chambers of the court of cassation. In the interest of the reform of the criminal law and especially the reclamation of young criminals he visited England ; publishing the result of his study as La Repression penale, comparaison du systeme penitentiaire en France et en Angleterre (1855). His son, Rene Berenger (183o-1915), vice-president of the Senate from 1894 to 1897, was also interested in prison reform.