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 153 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 154 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.