The prisons were full to bursting and must be emptied; the work of
judging, judging, must go on without truce or respite. Seated against
the tapestried walls with their fasces and red caps of liberty, like
their fellows of the fleurs-de-lis, the judges preserved the same
gravity, the same dreadful calm, as their Royal predecessors. The Public
Prosecutor and his Deputies, worn out with fatigue, consumed with the
fever of sleeplessness and brandy, could only shake off their exhaustion
by a violent effort; their broken health made them tragic figures to
look upon. The jurors, divers in character and origin, some educated,
others ignorant, craven or generous, gentle or violent, hypocritical or
sincere, but all men who, knowing the fatherland and the Republic in
danger, suffered or feigned to suffer the same anguish, to burn with the
same ardour; all alike primed to atrocities of virtue or of fear, they
formed but one living entity, one single head, dull and irritable, one
single soul, a beast of the apocalypse that by the mere exercise of its
natural functions produced a teeming brood of death. Kind-hearted or
cruel by caprice of sensibility, when shaken momentarily by a sudden
pang of pity, they would acquit with streaming eyes a prisoner whom an
hour before they would have condemned to the guillotine with taunts. The
further they proceeded with their task, the more impetuously did they
follow the impulses of their heart.
Judge and jury toiled, fevered and half asleep with overwork, distracted
by the excitement outside and the orders of the sovereign people,
menaced by the threats of the _sansculottes_ and _tricoteuses_ who
crowded the galleries and the public enclosure, relying on insane
evidence, acting on the denunciations of madmen, in a poisonous
atmosphere that stupefied the brain, set ears hammering and temples
beating and darkened the eyes with a veil of blood. Vague rumours were
current among the public of jurors bought by the gold of the accused.
But to these the jury as a body replied with indignant protest and
merciless condemnations. In truth they were men neither worse nor better
than their fellows. Innocence more often than not is a piece of good
fortune rather than a virtue; any other who should have consented to put
himself in their place would have acted as they did and accomplished to
the best of his commonplace soul these appalling tasks.
Antoinette, so long expected, sat at last in the fatal chair, in a black
gown, the centre of such a concentration of hate that only the certainty
of what the sentence would be made the court observe the forms of law.
To the deadly questions the accused replied sometimes with the instinct
of self-preservation, sometimes with her wonted haughtiness, and once,
thanks to the hideous suggestion of one of her accusers, with the noble
dignity of a mother. The witnesses were confined to outrage and calumny;
the defence was frozen with terror. The tribunal, forcing itself to
respect the rules of procedure, was only waiting till all formalities
were completed to hurl the head of _the Austrian_ in the face of
Europe.
Three days after the execution of Marie Antoinette Gamelin was called to
the bedside of the _citoyen_ Fortuné Trubert, who lay dying, within
thirty paces of the Military Bureau where he had worn out his life, on a
pallet of sacking, in the cell of some expelled Barnabite father. His
livid face was sunk in the pillow. His eyes, which already were almost
sightless, turned their glassy pupils upon his visitor; his parched hand
grasped Évariste's and pressed it with unexpected vigour. Three times he
had vomited blood in two days. He tried to speak; his voice, at first
hoarse and feeble as a whisper, grew louder, deeper:
"Wattignies! Wattignies!... Jourdan has forced the enemy into their camp
... raised the blockade at Maubeuge.... We have retaken Marchiennes, _ça
ira_ ... _ça ira_ ..." and he smiled.
These were no dreams of a sick man, but a clear vision of the truth that
flashed through the brain so soon to be shrouded in eternal darkness.
Hereafter the invasion seemed arrested; the Generals were terrorized and
saw that the one best thing for them to do was to be victorious. Where
voluntary recruiting had failed to produce what was needed, a strong and
disciplined army, compulsion was succeeding. One effort more, and the
Republic would be saved.
After a half hour of semi-consciousness, Fortuné Trubert's face,
hollow-cheeked and worn by disease, lit up again and his hands moved.
He lifted his finger and pointed to the only piece of furniture in the
room, a little walnut-wood writing-desk. The voice was weak and
breathless, but the mind quite unclouded:
"Like Eudamidas," he said, "I bequeath my debts to my friend,--three
hundred and twenty livres, of which you will find the account ... in
that red book yonder ... good-bye, Gamelin. Never rest; wake and watch
over the defence of the Republic. _Ça ira._"
The shades of night were deepening in the cell. The difficult breathing
of the dying man was the only sound, and his hands scratching on the
sheet.
At midnight he uttered some disconnected phrases:
"More saltpetre.... See the muskets are delivered. Health? Oh!
excellent.... Get down the church-bells...."
He breathed his last at five in the morning.
By order of the Section his body lay in state in the nave of the
erstwhile church of the Barnabites, at the foot of the Altar of the
Fatherland, on a camp bed, covered with a tricolour flag and the brow
wreathed with an oak crown.
Twelve old men clad in the Roman toga, with palms in their hands, twelve
young girls wearing long veils and carrying flowers, surrounded the
funeral couch. At the dead man's feet stood two children, each holding
an inverted torch. One of them Évariste recognized as his _concierge's_
little daughter Joséphine, who in her childish gravity and beauty
reminded him of those charming genii of Love and Death the Romans used
to sculpture on their tombs.
The funeral procession made its way to the Cemetery of
Saint-André-des-Arts to the strains of the _Marseillaise_ and the
_Ça-ira_.
As he laid the kiss of farewell on Fortuné Trubert's brow, Évariste
wept. His tears flowed in self-pity, for he envied his friend who was
resting there, his task accomplished.
On reaching home, he received notice that he was posted a member of the
Council General of the Commune. After standing as candidate for four
months, he had been elected unopposed, after several ballots, by some
thirty suffrages. No one voted nowadays; the Sections were deserted;
rich and poor alike only sought to shirk the performance of public
duties. The most momentous events had ceased to rouse either enthusiasm
or curiosity; the newspapers were left unread. Out of the seven hundred
thousand inhabitants of the capital Évariste doubted if as many as three
or four thousand still preserved the old Republican spirit.
The same day the Twenty-one came up for trial. Innocent or guilty of the
calamities and crimes of the Republic, vain, incautious, ambitious and
impetuous, at once moderate and violent, feeble in their fear as in
their clemency, quick to declare war, slow to carry it out, haled before
the Tribunal to answer for the example they had given, they were not the
less the first and the most brilliant children of the Revolution, whose
delight and glory they had been. The judge who will question them with
artful bias; the pallid accuser yonder who, where he sits behind his
little table, is planning their death and dishonour; the jurors who will
presently try to stifle their defence; the public in the galleries which
overwhelms them with howls of insult and abuse,--all, judge, jury,
people, have applauded their eloquence in other days, extolled their
talents and their virtues. But judge, jury, people have short memories
now.
Once Évariste had made Vergniaud his god, Brissot his oracle. But he
had forgotten; if any vestige of his old wonder still lingered in his
memory, it was to think that these monsters had seduced the noblest
citizens.
Returning to his lodging after the sitting, Gamelin heard heart-breaking
cries as he entered the house. It was little Joséphine; her mother was
whipping her for playing in the Place with good-for-nothing boys and
dirtying the fine white frock she had worn for the obsequies of the
_citoyen_ Trubert.