These four aliases hid, as the reader will remember, the real names of the Baron de Sainte-Hermine, the Comte de Jayat, the Vicomte de Valensolle, and the Marquis de Ribier.
While the evidence was being taken against the four prisoners before the military commission at Besancon, the time expired when under the law such cases were tried by courts-martial.

The prisoners became accountable therefore to the civil tribunals.

This made a great difference to them, not only as to the penalty if convicted, but in the mode of execution.

Condemned by a court-martial, they would be shot; condemned by the courts, they would be guillotined.

Death by the first was not infamous; death by the second was.
As soon as it appeared that their case was to be brought before a jury, it belonged by law to the court of Bourg.