“Is it not an insult, citizen patriots, to ask you to listen to the words of a fool, when the life of a French girl is at stake?”
The passionate earnestness with which he spoke, the burning indignation expressed in that calm, subdued voice, had the effect of awing the screaming rabble. They turned to gaze on him, as he stood there, facing them all, calm, proud, almost majestic, despite his small stature. Seizing this sudden advantage he began to speak. Without a gesture, hardly raising his voice, he began quietly, not choosing his words, or striving after eloquence, but only as a man speaking to his friends. And by one of those inexplicable reactions which will so often change the temper of a crowd, men, women and children ceased to curse and to deride. The innumerable eyes were fixed with more curiosity than malevolence upon him, the mouths, agape, uttered no further groan, and once more the click-click of knitting needles was momentarily stilled.
“Citizens,” he said, “you have heard two witnesses against the accused. One of these, the wench Adèle I myself, representative of the people, have convicted of deliberate falsehood, spoken to the prejudice of a French patriot. The other your own words have condemned for a fool, and an easy tool in the hands of English spies. You called him a fool, citizens, but I call him a traitor. Lieutenant Godet was not a tool in the hands of the English spies, he was their confederate, their help. Can you bring yourselves to believe, citizens, that a loyal soldier of the Republic could be deceived by false uniforms, by French words spoken by alien lips? Can you believe this story of a forced march, of starvation by the wayside in the company of English spies whose every action, every word, every gesture almost, must have betrayed them as the foreigners they actually were. Citizens, I appeal to that reputation for clear thinking and for logic, for which French men and women are famous throughout the world. At this hour when our beloved country is threatened on every side, is this the time, I say, for allowing yourselves to be duped by traitors who would sell you and your land, your dues and your liberty for English gold—?”
“No! no!” came a lusty shout in response. And the crowd took up the cry. “No! We’ll not sell our liberties for English gold.”
“Say on, citizen representative.”
Pochart had jumped to his feet; once or twice he had tried to break in on Chauvelin’s peroration, with cries of: “Thou’rt slandering a soldier of the Republic!” or: “Traitor! thou’rt in league with thy daughter!”
But he was not listened to. There was something about Chauvelin which fascinated the mob. His white, calm face, his pale, piercing eyes, his voice, dull, even monotonous, but penetrating to the most distant corners of the room. And there was also that welcome element of novelty. This pleased the women. Trials and condemnations in incessant routine had begun to pall. Here was something new. Witnesses summoned, then discredited, and finally accused. Such a thing had never been witnessed before in Orange.
And so the crowd would not listen to Pochart or Danou, they wanted to hear Chauvelin; they did not particularly wish to see Fleurette nommée Armand acquitted, but they did relish the prospect of the two witnesses being sent to the bench of the accused. That was novelty for them, and it was what they wanted for the moment. Moreover they did think that the citizen lieutenant with all his swagger had been such a consummate fool, if no worse, that it would be distinctly amusing to see that stupid head of his roll down into the basket of the guillotine.
Neither Pochart nor Danou, however, were men to give up the struggle quite so easily. In the fight against the representative on special mission, who had threatened them and lorded it over them for so long, they only contemplated one issue: victory. Victory! which would mean satisfaction of pride and of revenge. They had set out to win and did not consider themselves beaten. Not yet. Already Pochart was on his feet, and his rasping voice rose booming above the tumult. As soon as a slight lull gave him an opportunity he seized it, and cried in thunderous accents:
“Citizens! Frenchmen! French women! All of you!” And then again: “Citizens all! Let me put the same question to you, that the President asked you just now: will you allow yourselves to be duped? Will you go like sheep whithersoever traitors may lead you?”
The crowd murmured and shrugged shoulders, would have shouted Pochart down only that that rasping voice of his rose above the cry of: “A la lanterne, all traitors and fools!”
Pointing an accusing finger at Chauvelin, Pochart took up the cry.
“So say I,” he roared in a terrific straining of his powerful lungs: “A la lanterne all the traitors who try to throw dust in your eyes. Have you forgotten that the citizen President is the father of the accused? And that he knows well enough that if the child be guilty, then is the parent guilty too? To save himself he is trying to shield a traitor. Do not allow yourselves to be duped by him. Look on the Citizen President, my friends, and ask him how it comes about that he lavished all the treasures of his eloquence upon this one traitor, when yesterday and the day before that, he sent to the guillotine every man, woman and child who came before the Tribunal, and on a mere suspicion of treason.”
A dull murmur greeted this peroration. There had been something in Pochart’s eloquence which caused the crowd not to veer round just yet, but at any rate to look on the President of the Tribunal with rather less awe, and something approaching suspicion.
“That is
