The trial of Juliette.
It is all indelibly placed on record in the "Bulletin du Tribunal
Révolutionnaire," under date 25th Fructidor, year I. of the Revolution.
Anyone who cares may read, for the Bulletin is in the Archives of the
Bibliothèque 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 Salpêtriere, 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 Déroulède. 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
Déroulède, 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.
Yet for the sake of her, of her chances of safety and of ultimate
freedom, it was undoubtedly best that it should be so.
Arraigned for conspiracy against the Republic, she was liable to secret
trial, to be brought up, condemned, and executed before he could even
hear of her whereabouts, before he could throw himself before her judges
and take all guilt upon himself.
Those suspected of treason against the Republic forfeited, according to
Merlin's most iniquitous Law, their rights of citizenship, in publicity
of trial and in defence.
It all might have been finished before Déroulède knew anything of it.
The other way was, of course, more terrible. Brought forth amongst the
scum of criminal Paris, on a charge, the horror of which, he could but
dimly hope that she was too innocent to fully understand, he dared not
even think of what she would suffer.
But undoubtedly it was better so.
The mud thrown at her robes of purity could never cling to her, and at
least her trial would be public; he would be there to take all infamy,
all disgrace, all opprobrium on himself.
The strength of his appeal would turn her judges' wrath from her to him;
and after these few moments of misery, she would be free to leave Paris,
France, to be happy, and to forget him and the memory of him.
An overwhelming, all-compelling love filled his entire soul for the
beautiful girl, who had so wronged, yet so nobly tried to save him. A
longing for her made his very sinews ache; she was no longer madonna,
and her beauty thrilled him, with the passionate, almost sensuous desire
to give his life for her.
The indictment against Juliette Marny has become history now.
On that day, the 25th Fructidor, at seven o'clock in the evening, it was
read out by the Public Prosecutor, and listened to by the accused--so
the Bulletin tells us--with complete calm and apparent indifference. She
stood up in that same pillory where once stood poor, guilty Charlotte
Corday, where presently would stand proud, guiltless Marie Antoinette.
And Déroulède listened to the scurrilous document, with all the outward
calm his strength of will could command. He would have liked to rise
from his seat then and there, at once, and in mad, purely animal fury
have, with a blow of his fist, quashed the words in Foucquier-Tinville's
lying throat.
But for her sake he was bound to listen, and, above all, to act quietly,
deliberately, according to form and procedure, so as in no way to
imperil her cause.
Therefore he listened whilst the Public Prosecutor spoke.
"Juliette Marny, you are hereby accused of having, by a false and
malicious denunciation, slandered the person of a representative of the
people; you caused the Revolutionary Tribunal, through this same
mischievous act, to bring a charge against this representative of the
people, to institute a domiciliary search in his house, and to waste
valuable time, which otherwise belonged to the service of the Republic.
And this you did, not from a misguided sense of duty towards your
country, but in wanton and impure spirit, to be rid of the surveillance
of one who had your welfare at heart, and who tried to prevent your
leading the immoral life which had become a public scandal, and which
has now brought you before this court of justice, to answer to a charge
of wantonness, impurity, defamation of character, and corruption of
public morals. In proof of which I now place before the court your own
admission, that more than one citizen of the Republic has been led by
you into immoral relationship with yourself; and further, your own
admission, that your accusation against Citizen-Deputy Déroulède was
false and mischievous; and further, and finally, your immoral and
obscene correspondence with some persons unknown, which you vainly tried
to destroy. In consideration of which, and in the name of the people of
France, whose spokesman I am, I demand that you be taken hence from this
Hall of Justice to the Place de la Révolution, in full view of the
citizens of Paris and its environs, and clad in a soiled white garment,
emblem of the smirch upon your soul, that there you be publicly whipped
by the hands of Citizen Samson, the public executioner; after which,
that you be taken to the prison of the Salpêtriere, there to be further
detained at the discretion of the Committee of Public Safety. And now,
Juliette Marny, you have heard the indictment preferred against you,
have you anything to say, why the sentence which I have demanded shall
not be passed upon you?"
Jeers, shouts, laughter, and curses greeted this speech of the Public
Prosecutor.
All that was most vile and most bestial in this miserable, misguided
people struggling for Utopia and Liberty, seemed to come to the surface,
whilst listening to the reading of this most infamous document.
The delight of seeing this beautiful, ethereal woman, almost unearthly
in her proud aloofness, smirched with the vilest mud to which the
vituperation of man can contrive to sink, was a veritable treat to the
degraded wretches.
The women yelled hoarse approval; the children, not understanding,
laughed in mirthless glee; the men, with loud curses, showed their
appreciation of Foucquier-Tinville's speech.
As for Déroulède, the mental agony he endured surpassed any torture
which the devils, they say, reserve for the damned. His sinews cracked
in his frantic efforts to control himself; he dug his finger-nails into
his flesh, trying by physical pain to drown the sufferings of his mind.
He thought that his reason was tottering, that he would go mad if he
heard another word of this infamy. The hooting and yelling of that
filthy mob sounded like the cries of lost souls, shrieking from hell.
All his pity for them was gone, his love for humanity, his devotion to
the suffering poor.
A great, an immense hatred for this ghastly Revolution and the people it
professed to free filled his whole being, together with a mad, hideous
desire to see them suffer, starve, die a miserable, loathsome death. The
passion of hate, that now overwhelmed his soul, was at least as ugly as
theirs. He was, for one brief moment, now at one with them in their
inordinate lust for revenge.
Only Juliette throughout all this remained calm, silent, impassive.
She had heard the indictment, heard the loathsome sentence, for her
white cheeks had gradually become ashy pale, but never for a moment did
she depart from her attitude of proud aloofness.
She never once turned her head towards the mob who insulted her. She
waited in complete passiveness until the yelling and shouting had
subsided, motionless save for her finger-tips, which beat an impatient
tattoo upon the railing in front of her.
The Bulletin says that she took out her handkerchief and wiped her face
with it. _Elle s'essuya le front qui fut perlé de sueur._ The heat had
become oppressive.
The atmosphere was overcharged with the dank, penetrating odour of
steaming, dirty clothes. The room, though vast, was close and
suffocating, the tallow candles flickering in the humid, hot air threw
the faces of the President and clerks into bold relief, with curious
caricature effects of light and shade.
The petrol lamp above the head of the accused had flared up, and begun
to smoke, causing the chimney to crack with a sharp report. This
diversion effected a momentary silence among the crowd, and the Public
Prosecutor was able to repeat his query:
"Juliette Marny, have you anything to say in reply to the charge brought
against you, and why the sentence which I have demanded should not be
passed against you?"
The sooty smoke from the lamp came down in small, black, greasy
particles; Juliette with her slender finger-tips flicked one of these
quietly off her sleeve, then she replied:
"No; I have nothing to say."
"Have you instructed an advocate to defend you, according to your rights
of citizenship, which the Law allows?" added the Public Prosecutor
solemnly.
Juliette would have replied at once; her mouth had already framed the No
with which she meant to answer.
But now at last had come Déroulède's hour. For this he had been silent,
had suffered and had held his peace, whilst twice twenty-four hours had
dragged their weary lengths along, since the arrest of the woman he
loved.
In a moment he was on his feet before them all, accustomed to speak, to
dominate, to command.
"Citizeness Juliette Marny has entrusted me with her defence," he said,
even before the No had escaped Juliette's white lips, "and I am here to
refute the charges brought against her, and to demand in the name of the
people of France full acquittal and justice for her."