The defence.
Intense excitement, which found vent in loud applause, greeted
Déroulède's statement.
"_Ça ira! ça ira! vas-y Déroulède!_" came from the crowded benches
round; and men, women, and children, wearied with the monotony of the
past proceedings, settled themselves down for a quarter of an hour's
keen enjoyment.
If Déroulède had anything to do with it, the trial was sure to end in
excitement. And the people were always ready to listen to their special
favourite.
The citizen-deputies, drowsy after the long, oppressive day, seemed to
rouse themselves to renewed interest. Lebrun, like a big, shaggy dog,
shook himself free from creeping somnolence. Robespierre smiled between
his thin lips, and looked across at Merlin to see how the situation
affected him. The enmity between the Minister of Justice and Citizen
Déroulède was well known, and everyone noted, with added zest, that the
former wore a keen look of anticipated triumph.
High up, on one of the topmost benches, sat Citizen Lenoir, the
stage-manager of this palpitating drama. He looked down, with obvious
satisfaction, at the scene which he himself had suggested last night to
the members of the Jacobin Club. Merlin's sharp eyes had tried to pierce
the gloom, which wrapped the crowd of spectators, searching vainly to
distinguish the broad figure and massive head of the provincial giant.
The light from the petrol lamp shone full on Déroulède's earnest, dark
countenance as he looked Juliette's infamous accuser full in the face,
but the tallow candles, flickering weirdly on the President's desk,
threw Tinville's short, spare figure and large, unkempt head into
curious grotesque silhouette.
Juliette apparently had lost none of her calm, and there was no one
there sufficiently interested in her personality to note the tinge of
delicate colour which, at the first word of Déroulède, had slowly
mounted to her pale cheeks.
Tinville waited until the wave of excitement had broken upon the shoals
of expectancy.
Then he resumed:
"Then, Citizen Déroulède, what have _you_ to say, why sentence should
not be passed upon the accused?"
"I have to say that the accused is innocent of every charge brought
against her in your indictment," replied Déroulède firmly.
"And how do you substantiate this statement, Citizen-Deputy?" queried
Tinville, speaking with mock unctuousness.
"Very simply, Citizen Tinville. The correspondence to which you refer
did not belong to the accused, but to me. It consisted of certain
communications, which I desired to hold with Marie Antoinette, now a
prisoner in the Conciergerie, during my state there as
lieutenant-governor. The Citizeness Juliette Marny, by denouncing me,
was serving the Republic, for my communications with Marie Antoinette
had reference to my own hopes of seeing her quit this country and take
refuge in her own native land."
Gradually, as Déroulède spoke, a murmur, like the distant roar of a
monstrous breaker, rose among the crowd on the upper benches. As he
continued quietly and firmly, so it grew in volume and in intensity,
until his last words were drowned in one mighty, thunderous shout of
horror and execration.
Déroulède, the friend and idol of the people, the privileged darling of
this unruly population, the father of the children, the friend of the
women, the sympathiser in all troubles, Papa Déroulède as the little
ones called him--he a traitor, self-accused, plotting and planning for
an ex-tyrant, a harlot who had called herself a queen, for Marie
Antoinette the Austrian, who had desired and worked for the overthrow of
France! He, Déroulède, a traitor!
In one moment, as he spoke, the love which in their crude hearts they
bore him, that animal primitive love, was turned to sudden, equally
irresponsible hate. He had deceived them, laughed at them, tried to
bribe them by feeding their little ones!
Bah! the bread of the traitor! It might have choked the children.
Surprise at first had taken their breath away. Already they had
marvelled why he should stand up to defend a wanton. And now, probably
feeling that he was on the point of being found out, he thought it
better to make a clean breast of his own treason, trusting in his
popularity, in his power over the people.
Bah!!!
Not one extenuating circumstance did they find in their hardened hearts
for him.
He had been their idol, enshrined in their squalid, degraded minds, and
now he had fallen, shattered beyond recall, and they hated and loathed
him as much as they had loved him before.
And this his enemies noted, and smiled with complete satisfaction.
Merlin heaved a sigh of relief. Tinville nodded his shaggy head, in
token of intense delight.
What that provincial coal-heaver had foretold had indeed come to pass.
The populace, that most fickle of all fickle things in this world, had
turned all at once against its favourite. This Lenoir had predicted, and
the transition had been even more rapid than he had anticipated.
Déroulède had been given a length of rope, and, figuratively speaking,
had already hanged himself.
The reality was a mere matter of a few hours now. At dawn to-morrow the
guillotine; and the mob of Paris, who yesterday would have torn his
detractors limb from limb, would on the morrow be dragging him, with
hoots and yells and howls of execration, to the scaffold.
The most shadowy of all footholds, that of the whim of a populace, had
already given way under him. His enemies knew it, and were exulting in
their triumph. He knew it himself, and stood up, calmly defiant, ready
for any event, if only he succeeded in snatching her beautiful head from
the ready embrace of the guillotine.
Juliette herself had remained as if entranced. The colour had again fled
from her cheeks, leaving them paler, more ashen than before. It seemed
as if in this moment she suffered more than human creature could bear,
more than any torture she had undergone hitherto.
He would not owe his life to her.
That was the one overwhelming thought in her, which annihilated all
others. His love for her was dead, and he would not accept the great
sacrifice at her hands.
Thus these two in the supreme moment of their life saw each other, yet
did not understand. A word, a touch would have given them both the key
to one another's heart, and it now seemed as if death would part them
for ever, whilst that great enigma remained unsolved.
The Public Prosecutor had been waiting until the noise had somewhat
subsided, and his voice could be heard above the din, then he said, with
a smile of ill-concealed satisfaction:
"And is the court, then, to understand, Citizen-Deputy Déroulède, that
it was you who tried to burn the treasonable correspondence and to
destroy the case which contained it?"
"The treasonable correspondence was mine, and it was I who destroyed
it."
"But the accused admitted before Citizen Merlin that she herself was
trying to burn certain love letters, that would have brought to light
her illicit relationship with another man than yourself," argued
Tinville suavely. The rope was perhaps not quite long enough; Déroulède
must have all that could be given him, ere this memorable sitting was
adjourned.
Déroulède, however, instead of directing his reply straight to his
enemy, now turned towards the dense crowd of spectators, on the benches
opposite to him.
"Citizens, friends, brothers," he said warmly, "the accused is only a
girl, young, innocent knowing nothing of peril or of sin. You all have
mothers, sisters, daughters--have you not watched those dear to you in
the many moods of which a feminine heart is capable; have you not seen
them affectionate, tender, and impulsive? Would you love them so dearly
but for the fickleness of their moods? Have you not worshipped them in
your hearts, for those sublime impulses which put all man's plans and
calculations to shame? Look on the accused, citizens. She loves the
Republic, the people of France, and feared that I, an unworthy
representative of her sons, was hatching treason against our great
mother. That was her first wayward impulse--to stop me before I
committed the awful crime, to punish me, or perhaps only to warn me.
Does a young girl calculate, citizens? She acts as her heart dictates;
her reason but awakes from slumber later on, when the act is done. Then
comes repentance sometimes: another impulse of tenderness which we all
revere. Would you extract vinegar from rose leaves? Just as readily
could you find reason in a young girl's head. Is that a crime? She
wished to thwart me in my treason; then, seeing me in peril, the sincere
friendship she had for me gained the upper hand once more. She loved my
mother, who might be losing a son; she loved my crippled foster-sister;
for _their_ sakes, not for mine--a traitor's--did she yield to another,
a heavenly impulse, that of saving me from the consequences of my own
folly. Was _that_ a crime, citizens? When you are ailing, do not your
mothers, sisters, wives tend you? when you are seriously ill, would they
not give their heart's blood to save you? and when, in the dark hours of
your lives, some deed which you would not openly avow before the world
overweights your soul with its burden of remorse, is it not again your
womenkind who come to you, with tender words and soothing voices, trying
to ease your aching conscience, bringing solace, comfort, and peace? And
so it was with the accused, citizens. She had seen my crime, and longed
to punish it; she saw those who had befriended her in sorrow, and she
tried to ease their pain by taking _my_ guilt upon her shoulders. She
has suffered for the noble lie, which she had told on my behalf, as no
woman has ever been made to suffer before. She has stood, white and
innocent as your new-born children, in the pillory of infamy. She was
ready to endure death, and what was ten thousand times worse than death,
because of her own warm-hearted affection. But you, citizens of France,
who, above all, are noble, true, and chivalrous, you will not allow the
sweet impulses of young and tender womanhood to be punished with the ban
of felony. To you, women of France, I appeal in the name of your
childhood, your girlhood, your motherhood; take her to your hearts, she
is worthy of it, worthier now for having blushed before you, worthier
than any heroine in the great roll of honour of France."
His magnetic voice went echoing along the rafters of the great, sordid
Hall of Justice, filling it with a glory it had never known before. His
enthusiasm thrilled his hearers, his appeal to their honour and chivalry
roused all the finer feelings within them. Still hating him for his
treason, his magical appeal had turned their hearts towards her.
They had listened to him without interruption, and now at last, when he
paused, it was very evident, by muttered exclamations and glances cast
at Juliette, that popular feeling, which up to the present had
practically ignored her, now went out towards her personality with
overwhelming sympathy.
Obviously at the present moment, if Juliette's fate had been put to the
plebiscite, she would have been unanimously acquitted.
Merlin, as Déroulède spoke, had once or twice tried to read his friend
Foucquier-Tinville's enigmatical expression, but the Public Prosecutor,
with his face in deep shadow, had not moved a muscle during the
Citizen-Deputy's noble peroration. He sat at his desk, chin resting on
hand, staring before him with an expression of indifference, almost of
boredom.
Now, when Déroulède finished speaking, and the outburst of human
enthusiasm had somewhat subsided, he rose slowly to his feet, and said
quietly:
"So you maintain, Citizen-Deputy, that the accused is a chaste and
innocent girl, unjustly charged with immorality?"
"I do," protested Déroulède loudly.
"And will you tell the court why you are so ready to publicly accuse
yourself of treason against the Republic, knowing full well all the
consequences of your action?"
"Would any Frenchman care to save his own life at the expense of a
woman's honour?" retorted Déroulède proudly.
A murmur of approval greeted these words, and Tinville remarked
unctuously:
"Quite so, quite so. We esteem your chivalry, Citizen-Deputy. The same
spirit, no doubt, actuates you to maintain that the accused knew nothing
of the papers which you say you destroyed?"
"She knew nothing of them. I destroyed them; I did not know that they
had been found; on my return to my house I discovered that the
Citizeness Juliette Marny had falsely accused herself of having
destroyed some papers surreptitiously."
"She said they were love letters."
"It is false."
"You declare her to be pure and chaste?"
"Before the whole world."
"Yet you were in the habit of frequenting the bedroom of this pure and
chaste girl, who dwelt under your roof," said Tinville with slow and
deliberate sarcasm.
"It is false."
"If it be false, Citizen Déroulède," continued the other with the same
unctuous suavity, "then how comes it that the correspondence which you
admit was treasonable, and therefore presumably secret--how comes it
that it was found, still smouldering, in the chaste young woman's
bedroom, and the torn letter-case concealed among her dresses in a
valise?"
"It is false."
"The Minister of Justice, Citizen-Deputy Merlin, will answer for the
truth of that."
"It is the truth," said Juliette quietly.
Her voice rang out clear, almost triumphant, in the midst of the
breathless pause, caused by the previous swift questions and loud
answers.
Déroulède now was silent.
This one simple fact he did not know. Anne Mie, in telling him the
events in connection with the arrest of Juliette, had omitted to give
him the one little detail, that the burnt letters were found in the
young girl's bedroom.
Up to the moment when the Public Prosecutor confronted him with it, he
had been under the impression that she had destroyed the papers and the
letter-case in the study, where she had remained alone after Merlin and
his men had left the room. She could easily have burnt them there, as a
tiny spirit lamp was always kept alight on a side table for the use of
smokers.
This little fact now altered the entire course of events. Tinville had
but to frame an indignant ejaculation:
"Citizens of France, see how you are being befooled and hoodwinked!"
Then he turned once more to Déroulède.
"Citizen Déroulède ..." he began.
But in the tumult that ensued he could no longer hear his own voice. The
pent-up rage of the entire mob of Paris seemed to find vent for itself
in the howls with which the crowd now tried to drown the rest of the
proceedings.
As their brutish hearts had been suddenly melted on behalf of Juliette,
in response to Déroulède's passionate appeal, so now they swiftly
changed their sympathetic attitude to one of horror and execration.
Two people had fooled and deceived them. One of these they had
reverenced and trusted, as much as their degraded minds were capable of
reverencing anything, therefore _his_ sin seemed doubly damnable.
He and that pale-face aristocrat had for weeks now, months, or years
perhaps, conspired against the Republic, against the Revolution, which
had been made by a people thirsting for liberty. During these months and
years _he_ had talked to them, and they had listened; he had poured
forth treasures of eloquence, cajoled them, as he had done just now.
The noise and hubbub were growing apace. If Tinville and Merlin had
desired to infuriate the mob, they had more than succeeded. All that was
most bestial, most savage in this awful Parisian populace rose to the
surface now in one wild, mad desire for revenge.
The crowd rushed down from the benches, over one another's heads, over
children's fallen bodies; they rushed down because they wanted to get at
him, their whilom favourite, and at his pale-faced mistress, and tear
them to pieces, hit them, scratch out their eyes. They snarled like so
many wild beasts, the women shrieked, the children cried, and the men of
the National Guard, hurrying forward, had much ado to keep back this
flood-tide of hate.
Had any of them broken loose, from behind the barrier of bayonets
hastily raised against them, it would have fared ill with Déroulède and
Juliette.
The President wildly rang his bell, and his voice, quivering with
excitement, was heard once or twice above the din.
"Clear the court! Clear the court!"
But the people refused to be cleared out of court.
"_A la lanterne les traîtres! Mort à Déroulède. A la lanterne!
l'aristo!_"
And in the thickest of the crowd, the broad shoulders and massive head
of Citizen Lenoir towered above the others.
At first it seemed as if he had been urging on the mob in its fury. His
strident voice, with its broad provincial accent, was heard distinctly
shouting loud vituperations against the accused.
Then at a given moment, when the tumult was at its height, when the
National Guard felt their bayonets giving way before this onrushing tide
of human jackals, Lenoir changed his tactics.
"_Tiens! c'est bête!_" he shouted loudly, "we shall do far better with
the traitors when we get them outside. What say you, citizens? Shall we
leave the judges here to conclude the farce, and arrange for its sequel
ourselves outside the 'Tigre Jaune'?"
At first but little heed was paid to his suggestion, and he repeated it
once or twice, adding some interesting details:
"One is freer in the streets, where these apes of the National Guard
can't get between the people of France and their just revenge. _Ma
foi!_" he added, squaring his broad shoulders, and pushing his way
through the crowd towards the door, "I for one am going to see where
hangs the most suitable _lanterne._"
Like a flock of sheep the crowd now followed him.
"The nearest _lanterne!_" they shouted. "In the streets--in the streets!
_A la lanterne!_ The traitors!"
And with many a jeer, many a loathsome curse, and still more loathsome
jests, some of the crowd began to file out. A few only remained to see
the conclusion of the farce.