At ten o'clock the crowd which assembled around the courtroom were informed that the trial was postponed until one o'clock in the afternoon of the same day.
This change of hour, following on the news of the senator's deliverance, Marthe's arrest, and that of Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, together with the denial of the right to communicate with the prisoners carried terror to the hotel de Chargeboeuf.

The whole town and the spectators who had come to Troyes to be present at the trial, the short-hand writers for the daily journals, even the populace were in a ferment which can readily be imagined.

The Abbe Goujet came at ten o'clock to see Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre and the counsel for the defence, who were breakfasting--as well as they could under the circumstances.

The abbe took Bordin and Monsieur Grandville apart, told them what Marthe had confided to him the day before, and gave them the fragment of the letter she had received.

The two lawyers exchanged a look, after which Bordin said to the abbe: "Not a word of all this! The case is lost; but at any rate let us show a firm front." Marthe was not strong enough to evade the cross-questioning of the director of the jury and the public prosecutor.