Tall iron gates stood between the public and the prisoners, and a row of sentinels guarded these gates; but if one was enterprising and eager to see, one could glue one's nose against the ironwork and watch the ci-devant aristocrats in threadbare clothes trying to cheat their horror of death by acting a farce of light-heartedness which their wan faces and tear-dimmed eyes effectually belied.
All this Armand knew, and on this he counted.

For a little while he joined the crowd in the Salle des Pas Perdus, and wandered idly up and down the majestic colonnaded hall.

He even at one time formed part of the throng that watched one of those quick tragedies that were enacted within the great chamber of the court.

A number of prisoners brought in, in a batch; hurried interrogations, interrupted answers, a quick indictment, monstrous in its flaring injustice, spoken by Foucquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, and listened to in all seriousness by men who dared to call themselves judges of their fellows.
The accused had walked down the Champs Elysees without wearing a tricolour cockade; the other had invested some savings in an English industrial enterprise; yet another had sold public funds, causing them to depreciate rather suddenly in the market! Sometimes from one of these unfortunates led thus wantonly to butchery there would come an excited protest, or from a woman screams of agonised entreaty.

But these were quickly silenced by rough blows from the butt-ends of muskets, and condemnations--wholesale sentences of death--were quickly passed amidst the cheers of the spectators and the howls of derision from infamous jury and judge.
Oh! the mockery of it all--the awful, the hideous ignominy, the blot of shame that would forever sully the historic name of France.