CHAPTER XXV
The defence.
Intense excitement, which found vent in loud applause, greetedDeroulede's statement.
"_Ca ira! ca ira! vas-y Deroulede!_" came from the crowded benchesround; and men, women, and children, wearied with the monotony of thepast proceedings, settled themselves down for a quarter of an hour'skeen enjoyment.
If Deroulede had anything to do with it, the trial was sure to end inexcitement. And the people were always ready to listen to their specialfavourite.
The citizen-deputies, drowsy after the long, oppressive day, seemed torouse themselves to renewed interest. Lebrun, like a big, shaggy dog,shook himself free from creeping somnolence. Robespierre smiled betweenhis thin lips, and looked across at Merlin to see how the situationaffected him. The enmity between the Minister of Justice and CitizenDeroulede was well known, and everyone noted, with added zest, that theformer wore a keen look of anticipated triumph.
High up, on one of the topmost benches, sat Citizen Lenoir, thestage-manager of this palpitating drama. He looked down, with obvioussatisfaction, at the scene which he himself had suggested last night tothe members of the Jacobin Club. Merlin's sharp eyes had tried to piercethe gloom, which wrapped the crowd of spectators, searching vainly todistinguish the broad figure and massive head of the provincial giant.
The light from the petrol lamp shone full on Deroulede's earnest, darkcountenance 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 intocurious grotesque silhouette.
Juliette apparently had lost none of her calm, and there was no onethere sufficiently interested in her personality to note the tinge ofdelicate colour which, at the first word of Deroulede, had slowlymounted to her pale cheeks.
Tinville waited until the wave of excitement had broken upon the shoalsof expectancy.
Then he resumed:
"Then, Citizen Deroulede, what have _you_ to say, why sentence shouldnot be passed upon the accused?"
"I have to say that the accused is innocent of every charge broughtagainst her in your indictment," replied Deroulede firmly.
"And how do you substantiate this statement, Citizen-Deputy?" queriedTinville, speaking with mock unctuousness.
"Very simply, Citizen Tinville. The correspondence to which you referdid not belong to the accused, but to me. It consisted of certaincommunications, which I desired to hold with Marie Antoinette, now aprisoner in the Conciergerie, during my state there aslieutenant-governor. The Citizeness Juliette Marny, by denouncing me,was serving the Republic, for my communications with Marie Antoinettehad reference to my own hopes of seeing her quit this country and takerefuge in her own native land."
Gradually, as Deroulede spoke, a murmur, like the distant roar of amonstrous breaker, rose among the crowd on the upper benches. As hecontinued quietly and firmly, so it grew in volume and in intensity,until his last words were drowned in one mighty, thunderous shout ofhorror and execration.
Deroulede, the friend and idol of the people, the privileged darling ofthis unruly population, the father of the children, the friend of thewomen, the sympathiser in all troubles, Papa Deroulede as the littleones called him--he a traitor, self-accused, plotting and planning foran ex-tyrant, a harlot who had called herself a queen, for MarieAntoinette the Austrian, who had desired and worked for the overthrow ofFrance! He, Deroulede, a traitor!
In one moment, as he spoke, the love which in their crude hearts theybore him, that animal primitive love, was turned to sudden, equallyirresponsible hate. He had deceived them, laughed at them, tried tobribe 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 hadmarvelled why he should stand up to defend a wanton. And now, probablyfeeling that he was on the point of being found out, he thought itbetter to make a clean breast of his own treason, trusting in hispopularity, in his power over the people.
Bah!!!
Not one extenuating circumstance did they find in their hardened heartsfor him.
He had been their idol, enshrined in their squalid, degraded minds, andnow he had fallen, shattered beyond recall, and they hated and loathedhim 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, intoken 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, hadturned all at once against its favourite. This Lenoir had predicted, andthe transition had been even more rapid than he had anticipated.
Deroulede 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 theguillotine; and the mob of Paris, who yesterday would have torn hisdetractors limb from limb, would on the morrow be dragging him, withhoots and yells and howls of execration, to the scaffold.
The most shadowy of all footholds, that of the whim of a populace, hadalready given way under him. His enemies knew it, and were exulting intheir triumph. He knew it himself, and stood up, calmly defiant, readyfor any event, if only he succeeded in snatching her beautiful head fromthe ready embrace of the guillotine.
Juliette herself had remained as if entranced. The colour had again fledfrom her cheeks, leaving them paler, more ashen than before. It seemedas 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 allothers. His love for her was dead, and he would not accept the greatsacrifice at her hands.
Thus these two in the supreme moment of their life saw each other, yetdid not understand. A word, a touch would have given them both the keyto one another's heart, and it now seemed as if death would part themfor ever, whilst that great enigma remained unsolved.
The Public Prosecutor had been waiting until the noise had somewhatsubsided, and his voice could be heard above the din, then he said, witha smile of ill-concealed satisfaction:
"And is the court, then, to understand, Citizen-Deputy Deroulede, thatit was you who tried to burn the treasonable correspondence and todestroy the case which contained it?"
"The treasonable correspondence was mine, and it was I who destroyedit."
"But the accused admitted before Citizen Merlin that she herself wastrying to burn certain love letters, that would have brought to lighther illicit relationship with another man than yourself," arguedTinville suavely. The rope was perhaps not quite long enough; Derouledemust have all that could be given him, ere this memorable sitting wasadjourned.
Deroulede, however, instead of directing his reply straight to hisenemy, now turned towards the dense crowd of spectators, on the benchesopposite to him.
"Citizens, friends, brothers," he said warmly, "the accused is only agirl, young, innocent knowing nothing of peril or of sin. You all havemothers, sisters, daughters--have you not watched those dear to you inthe many moods of which a feminine heart is capable; have you not seenthem affectionate, tender, and impulsive? Would you love them so dearlybut for the fickleness of their moods? Have you not worshipped them inyour hearts, for those sublime impulses which put all man's plans andcalculations to shame? Look on the accused, citizens. She loves theRepublic, the people of France, and feared that I, an unworthyrepresentative of her sons, was hatching treason against our greatmother. That was her first wayward impulse--to stop me before Icommitted 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. Thencomes repentance sometimes: another impulse of tenderness w
hich we allrevere. Would you extract vinegar from rose leaves? Just as readilycould you find reason in a young girl's head. Is that a crime? Shewished to thwart me in my treason; then, seeing me in peril, the sincerefriendship she had for me gained the upper hand once more. She loved mymother, 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 ownfolly. Was _that_ a crime, citizens? When you are ailing, do not yourmothers, sisters, wives tend you? when you are seriously ill, would theynot give their heart's blood to save you? and when, in the dark hours ofyour lives, some deed which you would not openly avow before the worldoverweights your soul with its burden of remorse, is it not again yourwomenkind who come to you, with tender words and soothing voices, tryingto ease your aching conscience, bringing solace, comfort, and peace? Andso it was with the accused, citizens. She had seen my crime, and longedto punish it; she saw those who had befriended her in sorrow, and shetried to ease their pain by taking _my_ guilt upon her shoulders. Shehas suffered for the noble lie, which she had told on my behalf, as nowoman has ever been made to suffer before. She has stood, white andinnocent as your new-born children, in the pillory of infamy. She wasready 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 thesweet impulses of young and tender womanhood to be punished with the banof felony. To you, women of France, I appeal in the name of yourchildhood, your girlhood, your motherhood; take her to your hearts, sheis worthy of it, worthier now for having blushed before you, worthierthan any heroine in the great roll of honour of France."
His magnetic voice went echoing along the rafters of the great, sordidHall of Justice, filling it with a glory it had never known before. Hisenthusiasm thrilled his hearers, his appeal to their honour and chivalryroused all the finer feelings within them. Still hating him for histreason, his magical appeal had turned their hearts towards her.
They had listened to him without interruption, and now at last, when hepaused, it was very evident, by muttered exclamations and glances castat Juliette, that popular feeling, which up to the present hadpractically ignored her, now went out towards her personality withoverwhelming sympathy.
Obviously at the present moment, if Juliette's fate had been put to theplebiscite, she would have been unanimously acquitted.
Merlin, as Deroulede spoke, had once or twice tried to read his friendFoucquier-Tinville's enigmatical expression, but the Public Prosecutor,with his face in deep shadow, had not moved a muscle during theCitizen-Deputy's noble peroration. He sat at his desk, chin resting onhand, staring before him with an expression of indifference, almost ofboredom.
Now, when Deroulede finished speaking, and the outburst of humanenthusiasm had somewhat subsided, he rose slowly to his feet, and saidquietly:
"So you maintain, Citizen-Deputy, that the accused is a chaste andinnocent girl, unjustly charged with immorality?"
"I do," protested Deroulede loudly.
"And will you tell the court why you are so ready to publicly accuseyourself of treason against the Republic, knowing full well all theconsequences of your action?"
"Would any Frenchman care to save his own life at the expense of awoman's honour?" retorted Deroulede proudly.
A murmur of approval greeted these words, and Tinville remarkedunctuously:
"Quite so, quite so. We esteem your chivalry, Citizen-Deputy. The samespirit, no doubt, actuates you to maintain that the accused knew nothingof the papers which you say you destroyed?"
"She knew nothing of them. I destroyed them; I did not know that theyhad been found; on my return to my house I discovered that theCitizeness Juliette Marny had falsely accused herself of havingdestroyed 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 andchaste girl, who dwelt under your roof," said Tinville with slow anddeliberate sarcasm.
"It is false."
"If it be false, Citizen Deroulede," continued the other with the sameunctuous suavity, "then how comes it that the correspondence which youadmit was treasonable, and therefore presumably secret--how comes itthat it was found, still smouldering, in the chaste young woman'sbedroom, and the torn letter-case concealed among her dresses in avalise?"
"It is false."
"The Minister of Justice, Citizen-Deputy Merlin, will answer for thetruth of that."
"It is the truth," said Juliette quietly.
Her voice rang out clear, almost triumphant, in the midst of thebreathless pause, caused by the previous swift questions and loudanswers.
Deroulede now was silent.
This one simple fact he did not know. Anne Mie, in telling him theevents in connection with the arrest of Juliette, had omitted to givehim the one little detail, that the burnt letters were found in theyoung girl's bedroom.
Up to the moment when the Public Prosecutor confronted him with it, hehad been under the impression that she had destroyed the papers and theletter-case in the study, where she had remained alone after Merlin andhis men had left the room. She could easily have burnt them there, as atiny spirit lamp was always kept alight on a side table for the use ofsmokers.
This little fact now altered the entire course of events. Tinville hadbut to frame an indignant ejaculation:
"Citizens of France, see how you are being befooled and hoodwinked!"
Then he turned once more to Deroulede.
"Citizen Deroulede ..." he began.
But in the tumult that ensued he could no longer hear his own voice. Thepent-up rage of the entire mob of Paris seemed to find vent for itselfin the howls with which the crowd now tried to drown the rest of theproceedings.
As their brutish hearts had been suddenly melted on behalf of Juliette,in response to Deroulede's passionate appeal, so now they swiftlychanged their sympathetic attitude to one of horror and execration.
Two people had fooled and deceived them. One of these they hadreverenced and trusted, as much as their degraded minds were capable ofreverencing anything, therefore _his_ sin seemed doubly damnable.
He and that pale-face aristocrat had for weeks now, months, or yearsperhaps, conspired against the Republic, against the Revolution, whichhad been made by a people thirsting for liberty. During these months andyears _he_ had talked to them, and they had listened; he had pouredforth treasures of eloquence, cajoled them, as he had done just now.
The noise and hubbub were growing apace. If Tinville and Merlin haddesired to infuriate the mob, they had more than succeeded. All that wasmost bestial, most savage in this awful Parisian populace rose to thesurface now in one wild, mad desire for revenge.
The crowd rushed down from the benches, over one another's heads, overchildren's fallen bodies; they rushed down because they wanted to get athim, their whilom favourite, and at his pale-faced mistress, and tearthem to pieces, hit them, scratch out their eyes. They snarled like somany wild beasts, the women shrieked, the children cried, and the men ofthe National Guard, hurrying forward, had much ado to keep back thisflood-tide of hate.
Had any of them broken loose, from behind the barrier of bayonetshastily raised against them, it would have fared ill with Deroulede andJuliette.
The President wildly rang his bell, and his voice, quivering withexcitement, 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 traitres! Mort a Deroulede. A la lanterne!l'aristo!_"
And in the thickest of the crowd, the broad shoulders and massive headof Citizen Lenoir towered above the others.
At first it seemed as if he had been urging on the mob in
its fury. Hisstrident voice, with its broad provincial accent, was heard distinctlyshouting loud vituperations against the accused.
Then at a given moment, when the tumult was at its height, when theNational Guard felt their bayonets giving way before this onrushing tideof human jackals, Lenoir changed his tactics.
"_Tiens! c'est bete!_" he shouted loudly, "we shall do far better withthe traitors when we get them outside. What say you, citizens? Shall weleave the judges here to conclude the farce, and arrange for its sequelourselves outside the 'Tigre Jaune'?"
At first but little heed was paid to his suggestion, and he repeated itonce or twice, adding some interesting details:
"One is freer in the streets, where these apes of the National Guardcan't get between the people of France and their just revenge. _Mafoi!_" he added, squaring his broad shoulders, and pushing his waythrough the crowd towards the door, "I for one am going to see wherehangs 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 loathsomejests, some of the crowd began to file out. A few only remained to seethe conclusion of the farce.