Foucquier-Tinville suppresses a sneer, and the Citizen-President
impatiently rings his hand-bell again.
“Bring forth the accused!” he commands
in stentorian tones.
There is a movement of satisfaction among the crowd,
and the angel of God is forced to hide his face again.
The trial of Juliette.
It is all indelibly placed on record in the “Bulletin
du Tribunal Revolutionnaire,” under date 25th
Fructidor, year I. of the Revolution.
Anyone who cares may read, for the Bulletin is in
the Archives of the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris.
One by one the accused had been brought forth, escorted
by two men of the National Guard in ragged, stained
uniforms of red, white, and blue; they were then conducted
to the small raised platform in the centre of the
hall, and made to listen to the charge brought against
them by Citizen Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Presecutor.
They were petty charges mostly: pilfering, fraud,
theft, occasionally arson or manslaughter. One
man, however, was arraigned for murder with highway
robbery, and a woman for the most ignoble traffic,
which evil feminine ingenuity could invent.
These two were condemned to the guillotine, the others
sent to the galleys at Brest or Toulon—the
forger along with the petty thief, the housebreaker
with the absconding clerk.
There was no room in the prison for ordinary offences
against the criminal code; they were overfilled already
with so-called traitors against the Republic.
Three women were sent to the penitentiary at the Salpetriere,
and were dragged out of the court shrilly protesting
their innocence, and followed by obscene jeers from
the spectators on the benches.
Then there was a momentary hush.
Juliette Marny had been brought in.
She was quite calm, and exquisitely beautiful, dressed
in a plain grey bodice and kirtle, with a black band
round her slim waist and a soft white kerchief folded
across her bosom. Beneath the tiny, white cap
her golden hair appeared in dainty, curly profusion;
her child-like, oval face was very white, but otherwise
quite serene.
She seemed absolutely unconscious of her surroundings,
and walked with a firm step up to the platform, looking
neither to the right nor to the left of her.
Therefore she did not see Deroulede. A great,
a wonderful radiance seemed to shine in her large
eyes—the radiance of self-sacrifice.
She was offering not only her life, but everything
a woman of refinement holds most dear, for the safety
of the man she loved.
A feeling that was almost physical pain, so intense
was it, overcame Deroulede, when at last he heard
her name loudly called by the Public Prosecutor.
All day he had waited for this awful moment, forgetting
his own misery, his own agonised feeling of an irretrievable
loss, in the horrible thought of what she would
endure, what she would think, when first she
realised the terrible indignity, which was to be put
upon her.
