"Silence for the Citizen President!" he reiterated, striking his bludgeon on the table.
The president rose and proclaimed that the sitting for the day had begun; then sat down again.
The momentary silence which followed was interrupted by a sudden confusion among the prisoners on the platform.

Two of the guards sprang in among them.

There was the thump of a heavy fall--a scream of terror from some of the female prisoners--then another dead silence, broken by one of the guards, who walked across the hall with a bloody knife in his hand, and laid it on the table.

"Citizen President," he said, "I have to report that one of the prisoners has just stabbed himself." There was a murmuring exclamation, "Is that all ?" among the women spectators, as they resumed their work.

Suicide at the bar of justice was no uncommon occurrence, under the Reign of Terror.
"Name ?" asked the president, quietly taking up his pen and opening a book.
"Martigne," answered the humpbacked jailer, coming forward to the table.
"Description ?" "Ex-royalist coach-maker to the tyrant Capet." "Accusation ?" "Conspiracy in prison." The president nodded, and entered in the book: "Martigne, coachmaker.
Accused of conspiring in prison.