"Mais, monsieur," that phrase which means so many inexpressible things—"But, sir, you must observe, that by putting my pamphlet into your charge, it has a double chance. You may read it as a part of your defence; it is a treatise on the government of France, which settles all the disputed questions, reconciles republicanism with monarchy, and shows how a revolution may be made to purify all things without overthrowing any. Thus my sentiments will become public at once, the world will be enlightened, and, though you may perish, France will be saved."
Nothing could be more convincing; yet I continued stubborn. He persisted. I suggested the "possibility of my not being suffered to make any defence whatever, but of being swept away at once; in this case endangering the total loss of his conceptions to the world;" but I had to deal with a man of resources.
"No," said the author and philanthropist; "for that event I have provided. I have a second copy folded on my breast, which I shall read when I am called on for trial. Then those immortal truths shall not be left to accident; I shall have two chances for celebrity; the labour of my life shall be known; nor shall the name of Jean Jacques Pelletier go to the tomb without the renown due to a philosopher."
But further deprecation on my part was cut short by the appearance of two of the guard, by whom I was marched to the presence of the tribunal. The day had now waned, and two or three lamps showed my weary eye the judges, whose decision was to make the difference to me between life and death, within the next half hour. Their appearance was the reverse of one likely to reconcile the unfortunate to the severity of the law. They were seven or eight sitting on a raised platform, with a long table in their front, covered with papers, with what seemed to be the property taken from the condemned at the moment—watches, purses, and trinkets; and among those piles, very visibly the fragments of a dinner—plates and soups, with several bottles of cognac and wine. Justice was so indefatigable in France, that its ministers were forced to mingle all the functions of public and private life together; and to be intoxicated in the act of passing sentence of death was no uncommon event.
The judges of those sectional tribunals were generally ruffians of the lowest description, who, having made themselves notorious by violence and Jacobinism, had driven away the usual magistracy, and, under the pretext of administering justice, were actually driving a gainful trade in robbery of every kind. The old costume of the courts of law was of course abjured; and the new civic costume, which was obviously constructed on the principle of leaving the lands free for butchery, and preserving the garments free from any chance of being disfigured by the blood of the victim—for they were the perfection of savage squalidness—was displayed à la rigueur on the bench. A short coat without sleeves, the shirt sleeves tucked up as for instant execution, the neck open, no collar, fierce mustaches, a head of clotted hair, sometimes a red nightcap stuck on one side, and sometimes a red handkerchief tied round it as a temporary "bonnet de nuit"—for the judges frequently, in drunkenness or fatigue, threw themselves on the bench or the floor, and slept—exhibited the regenerated aspect of Themis in the capital of the polished world.
My name was now called. I shall not say with what a throb of heart I heard it. But at the moment when I was stepping forward, I felt my skirt pulled by one of the guard behind me. I looked, and recognized through all his beard, and the hair that in profusion covered his physiognomy, my police friend, who seemed to possess the faculty of being every where—a matter, however, rendered easier to him by his being in the employ of the government—and who simply whispered the words—"Be firm, and acknowledge nothing." Slight as the hint was, it had come in good time; for I had grown desperate from the sight of the perpetual casualties round me, and, like Cassini's idea of the man walking on the edge of the precipice, had felt some inclination to jump off, and take my chance. But now contempt and defiance took the place of despair; and instead of openly declaring my purposes and performances, my mind was made up to leave them to find out what they could.
On my being marched up to the foot of the platform between two frightful-looking ruffians, whose coats and trousers seemed to have been dyed in gore, to show that they were worthy of the murders of September, and who, to make "assurance doubly sure," wore on their sword-belts the word "September," painted in broad characters, I remained for a while unquestioned, until they turned over a pile of names which they had flung on the table before them. At last their perplexity was relieved by one of the clerks, who pronounced my name. I was then interrogated in nearly the same style as before the committee of my first captors. I gave them short answers.
"Who are you?" asked the principal distributor of rabble justice. The others stooped forward, pens in hand, to record my conviction.
My answer was—
"I am a man." (Murmurs on the platform.)