CHAPTER XXIV.
The trial of Juliette.
It is all indelibly placed on record in the "Bulletin du Tribunal Revolutionnaire," under date 25th Fructidor, year I.of the Revolution.
Anyone who cares may read, for the Bulletin is in the Archives of the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris.
One by one the accused had been brought forth, escorted by two men of the National Guard in ragged, stained uniforms of red, white, and blue; they were then conducted to the small raised platform in the centre of the hall, and made to listen to the charge brought against them by Citizen Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Presecutor.
They were petty charges mostly: pilfering, fraud, theft, occasionally arson or manslaughter.

One man, however, was arraigned for murder with highway robbery, and a woman for the most ignoble traffic, which evil feminine ingenuity could invent.
These two were condemned to the guillotine, the others sent to the galleys at Brest or Toulon--the forger along with the petty thief, the housebreaker with the absconding clerk.
There was no room in the prison for ordinary offences against the criminal code; they were overfilled already with so-called traitors against the Republic.
Three women were sent to the penitentiary at the Salpetriere, and were dragged out of the court shrilly protesting their innocence, and followed by obscene jeers from the spectators on the benches.
Then there was a momentary hush.
Juliette Marny had been brought in.
She was quite calm, and exquisitely beautiful, dressed in a plain grey bodice and kirtle, with a black band round her slim waist and a soft white kerchief folded across her bosom.

Beneath the tiny, white cap her golden hair appeared in dainty, curly profusion; her child-like, oval face was very white, but otherwise quite serene.
She seemed absolutely unconscious of her surroundings, and walked with a firm step up to the platform, looking neither to the right nor to the left of her.
Therefore she did not see Deroulede.

A great, a wonderful radiance seemed to shine in her large eyes--the radiance of self-sacrifice.
She was offering not only her life, but everything a woman of refinement holds most dear, for the safety of the man she loved.
A feeling that was almost physical pain, so intense was it, overcame Deroulede, when at last he heard her name loudly called by the Public Prosecutor.
All day he had waited for this awful moment, forgetting his own misery, his own agonised feeling of an irretrievable loss, in the horrible thought of what _she_ would endure, what _she_ would think, when first she realised the terrible indignity, which was to be put upon her.
Yet for the sake of her, of her chances of safety and of ultimate freedom, it was undoubtedly best that it should be so.
Arraigned for conspiracy against the Republic, she was liable to secret trial, to be brought up, condemned, and executed before he could even hear of her whereabouts, before he could throw himself before her judges and take all guilt upon himself.
Those suspected of treason against the Republic forfeited, according to Merlin's most iniquitous Law, their rights of citizenship, in publicity of trial and in defence.
It all might have been finished before Deroulede knew anything of it.
The other way was, of course, more terrible.

Brought forth amongst the scum of criminal Paris, on a charge, the horror of which, he could but dimly hope that she was too innocent to fully understand, he dared not even think of what she would suffer.
But undoubtedly it was better so.
The mud thrown at her robes of purity could never cling to her, and at least her trial would be public; he would be there to take all infamy, all disgrace, all opprobrium on himself.
The strength of his appeal would turn her judges' wrath from her to him; and after these few moments of misery, she would be free to leave Paris, France, to be happy, and to forget him and the memory of him.
An overwhelming, all-compelling love filled his entire soul for the beautiful girl, who had so wronged, yet so nobly tried to save him.