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THE TRIBUNAL.
At the Bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal stood Deputy Caron La Boulaye upon his trial for treason to the Nation and contravention of the ends of justice.

Fouquier-Tinvillle, the sleuth-hound Attorney-General, advanced his charges, and detailed the nature of the young revolutionist's crime.

But there was in Fouquier-Tinvillle's prosecution a lack of virulence for once, just as among La Boulaye's fellows, sitting in judgment, there was a certain uneasiness, for the Revolution was still young, and it had not yet developed that Saturnian habit of devouring its own children which was later to become one of its main features.
The matter of La Boulaye's crime, however, was but too clear, and despite the hesitancy on the part of the jury, despite the unwonted tameness of Tinvillle's invective, the Tribunal's course was well-defined, and admitted of not the slightest doubt.

And so, the production of evidence being dispensed with by Caron's ready concurrence and acknowledgment of the offence, the President was on the point of formally asking the jury for their finding, when suddenly there happened a commotion, and a small man in a blue coat and black-rimmed spectacles rose at Tinvillle's side, and began an impassioned speech for the defence.
This man was Robespierre, and the revolutionists sitting there listened to him in mute wonder, for they recalled that it was upon the Incorruptible's own charge their brother-deputy had been arrested.
Ardently did Maximilien pour out his eloquence, enumerating the many virtues of the accused and dwelling at length upon his vast services to the Republic, his hitherto unfaltering fidelity to the nation and the people's cause, and lastly, deploring that in a moment of weakness he should have committed the indiscretion which had brought him where he stood.