BEFORE THE DREAD TRIBUNAL
That awful Tribunal sat daily. During the height of the Terror, no
time was allowed to prisoners for the preparation of their cases--no
interval elapsed between the prisoners' arrest and their arraignment.
Dispatch--_dispatch_--DISPATCH was the essence of the bloody business,
the purpose being to strike terror upon all that opposed the little
fanatical minority then in power.
Therefore the guard brought Henriette and Maurice directly from
their arrest to their trial, and they gazed upon a sight for Gods
and men--a travesty on the sacred name of justice. Such scenes
would seem unbelievable to us but for the recent events of the
Russian Revolution, which prove that in our age also a proletarian
dictatorship can be senselessly wicked and cruel.
The trials--beside their Terror function of upholding a minority
government--were great public shows for the howling rabble and
leering sansculottes, the hoodlums of Paris whom even the masters
dared not offend. The riff-raff acted exactly as at any of their own
celebrations and feastings.
Along the side benches and up on the "Mountain," flirtation and
sweethearting went on, of a rough-and-ready order. Some spectators
coolly munched their dinners. Others, having brought along their
bottles, indulged in drinking bouts. Everyone's ideas of a good time
cannot be the same. There was our eccentric acquaintance the Jolly
Baker, for instance. The height of bliss for him, at one of these
capital trials, was to lean far, far back with open mouth whilst a
tilted bottle, held by a ministering Hebe, spilled ecstatic drops of
damp and ruby "happiness" upon his "open-face" physiognomy.
Another misfit of the grotesque crowds was Picard, foolishly trying to
discover what 'twas all about, gazing soulful-eyed into hoodlum "mugs"
that gave him the merry "ha! ha!" or sickened him with the likeness of
the First Murderer. But "crime," in one instance at least, was
followed by "punishment," for as the murderous citizen suddenly thrust
out his roaring raucous mouth, Picard inadvertently leaned back.
[Illustration: LOUISE AND LA FROCHARD TRYING TO KEEP PIERRE, THE CRIPPLE,
FROM FIGHTING HIS BROTHER JACQUES.]
The huge sansculotte, to his own surprise, was eating the bushy
horse-hair pigtail of Picard's bobbing queue! The ex-valet made a
quick duck. His murderous-looking neighbor, with a full swing,
walloped the countenance of the sansculotte beyond....
On this day of our characters' trial, the side benches and balconies
of the great hall quickly fill with the howling, leering mobs--the
fierce and grotesque chorus of the grim tragedy.
Interspersed with the rabid Jacobins are other--less partisan--spectators,
and among the hurrying throngs a close observer might have noticed the
luckless Pierre Frochard and the blind girl Louise entering. They found
seats on a front bench.
"The judges are taking their places now," said Pierre. "You will soon
hear the trials. Over on their right sits Robespierre, the dictator of
France!"
The judges, so-called, are five villainous individuals, wearing
dirty-looking plumed hats, black jerkins and breeches, and tall jack
boots. The shaggy-haired Jacques-Forget-Not presides.
A frowsy public prosecutor--red, white and blue cockade affixed to his
tousled hat plume--calls the names of the accused and presents the
charge. From the background, the stripe-panted soldiery are bringing
the victims up.
"They are arraigning them in batches," says Pierre. "The judges make
quick work!" Louise shudders, lays hold of his arm.
There is something horrible in the sound of the advancing footsteps; the
harsh accusations and weak replies, oft drowned by the sansculottes'
roar; the sentences of doom, and the final scuffling of feet as the
soldiers seize their prey and bear it off.
Innocence and guilt often go up together.
Unfortunate women of the street are arraigned next high-bred
aristocrats, or moderates whose only crime has been to denounce such
horrors. A gallant gentleman pleads vainly to the judges who are also
the jury: "We have had no trial!" The mob howls "Guillotine!" and
"Guillotine!" is Jacques-Forget-Not's brief sentence !
A young Corsican lieutenant of artillery looks on meditatively. His
silent thought is sensed by a bystander who remarks: "I suppose,
Napoleon, you think you could manage things better!" The man grins.
But Napoleon Bonaparte--he who snuffed out Revolution later by whiff
of grapeshot--nods gravely yes.
As the prisoners from the faubourg are brought in, Henriette sees the
loved and long lost face of her dreams among the front row of the
sansculottes.
Stupefied, unbelieving, she looks again and again. Yes, it is
she--none other! Her own peril and that of Maurice are unthought of.
Protective love of the blind one tides back in resistless strength.
She is trying now to escape from the guards, run to her sister--even
to pantomime her love, gesticulate it with funny little motions and
confidential fingers on lips--forgetting that the other cannot see!
And then her wild, excited cry rings through the great hall:
"LOUISE! LOUISE!"
Louise jumps to her feet, groping wildly towards the cry. Her blind
features are strained in agonized expectancy. Pierre has located the
frenzied Henriette. He guides the groping blind girl from the benches
to her sister.
In this council chamber of hates and cruelty, rulers and attendants
alike are steeled against shrieks of suffering or the outbursts of the
accused. A fence of locked bayonets stops each advancing sister.
Paying rather less heed to the incident than if it were a request for
a drink of water, the soldiery push back Pierre and Louise to the
seats and make ready to obey the prosecutor's call.
"Citizen de Vaudrey and Henriette Girard to the bar!"
The Chevalier faces the dread quintet. The prosecutor reads the
charge, demands the death penalty on the returned aristocrat. Poor
Henriette is divided between her frenzied wish to clasp her sister and
her horror about Maurice.
The young man defends himself.
"An emigre, yes!" he acknowledges, "but not an enemy of the people."
Many a spectator of the scenes--even the wicked judges--could bear
witness (did not prejudice blind!) to his kindness for the afflicted
and fallen. Is there an undercurrent of sympathy for him even amongst
hard sansculottes?
But this is Jacques-Forget-Not's great moment.
Vengeance's hour has struck.
The wickedness of the old de Vaudreys is to be expiated at last!