Chapter 6 Summary

During the hottest July ever, four National Guards maintain order as one hundred citizens gather at the baker's door. Evariste and Citizen Brotteaux join the queue as a hawker announces the Bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, a list of the condemned. Suggesting there should be a tribunal in every hamlet, Evariste believes "only the guillotine can save our country" (p. 75). Several women join the line, including the Citizeness Dumonteil, a young mother with a sickly, suckling infant who cries for lack of milk, but with his father away, the young woman can barely feed herself, let alone her child. When a pretty girl claims her purse was stolen, the crowd turns indignant and suspicion falls on an old man suspected of being a defrocked monk. As the crowd calls for the death of the Capuchin, Brotteaux defends the man, and Evariste defends Brotteaux...