“The Palais!” said I, as for the first time for weeks past a sentiment of fear crept through me. “Are we to be tried without having a list of the charges alleged against us?”
“You 'll hear them time enough in court.”
“Without an advocate to defend us.”
“The President will name one for that purpose.”
“And can the jury—”
“Jury! There is no jury; the Consul has suspended trial by jury for two years. Come, come, don't be downhearted; your friends without are singing away as gayly as though it were a festival. My faith, that Greneral George is made of iron, I believe. He has been confined au secret these ten days, his rations diminished to almost a starvation level, and yet there is he now, with his countenance as calm and his look as firm as if he were at large on the hills of La Vendée. Cheer up, then; let the example of your chief—”
“Chief! he is no chief of mine.”
“That 's as it may, or may not be,” replied he, gruffly, as though wounded by what he deemed a want of confidence in his honor. “However, make haste and dress, for the carriages will be here to convey you to the Palais. And there now are the Gendarmes d'Élite assembling in the court.”
As I proceeded to dress, I could see from the window of my cell that a squadron of gendarmes, in full uniform, were drawn up in the square of the prison, along one side of which were several carriages standing, each with two gendarmes seated on the box. The prisoners were confined to their walls; but at every window some face appeared peering anxiously at the proceedings beneath, and watching with inquisitive gaze every, even the slightest, movement.
Just as the clock struck nine the door of my cell was opened, and a greffier of the court entered, and, taking from a black portmanteau at his side a roll of paper, began without delay to repeat in a sing-song recitative tone a formal summons of the Grand Tribunal for the “surrender of the body of Thomas Burke, sous-lieutenant of the huitieme hussars, now in the prison of the Temple, and accused of the crime of treason.”