What would have happened afterwards nobody can say. The most fickle entity in the world is a multitude, and of all the multitudes, an audience watching the suffering of a fellow-creature is the most fickle and the most callous. For the next two or three minutes at any rate, Chauvelin held the sympathy of the crowd. Fleurette did not count either way. For the spectators of this heartrending pageant she was just a thing, an insentient object placed there for their entertainment, the pivot round which circled their excitement. But Chauvelin, the father pleading for his daughter’s life, had won their sympathy—the sympathy of tiger-cats, satiated for the moment and licking their chops in the intervals of snarling.
All then would have been well but for the action of one of the sympathizers who stood leaning up against the wall in the crowd; a giant he was, coated with grime—coal heaver or scavenger probably, only half clad in ragged shirt and torn breeches, with dirty feet thrust stockingless into sabots, a red worsted cap over his unkempt hair, his face streaked with sweat and coal-dust. In one hand he held a large raw carrot which he was munching with loud snapping of the jaws and smacking of the lips. He was one of the noisiest in his approval of the President’s peroration.
“Vas-y, Président,” he shouted. “A la lanterne, the fools and traitors. Where is that trollop? Let her stand up. We want to look at her, eh, citizens?”
“Yes! Yes! we want to see her! Stand up, Adèle of unknown parentage! Let’s look at you.”
The women, of course, were the loudest in their demand for the unfortunate Adèle. Bred by misery, often out of degradation, trained by five years of an execrable revolution, the women of France were not féministes these days. The spectacle of one of their own sex on the guillotine gave them more satisfaction than that of a man. Now they wanted to see Adèle of the pinched, ratlike face, Adèle with the trembling hands and the shrinking shoulders, they wanted to see her squirm before their wrath, they wanted to see her wriggle like a worm prodded with a pin. Incidentally they had almost forgotten Fleurette.
Louder and even louder they clamoured for Adèle, and at an order from the President, two soldiers of the National guard did presently drag Adèle from the corner of the witness’ bench where she was cowering like a frightened rodent, and dragged her—or rather carried her—to the bar of the accused. The crowd seeing that its dictates were being obeyed, restrained its frenzy for an instant and, through the comparative stillness that ensued, a piercing shriek rang out from the unfortunate Adèle.
“Mercy! Mercy!” she cried, and struggled fiercely to free herself from the men’s grasp. “I am innocent! I spoke the truth.”
A thunderous shout of derisive laughter greeted her cry. The women, with their hands on their knees, were literally rocking with laughter. They thought that Adèle with a face like a rat, wisps of lank hair poking out from underneath her cap which sat all awry, with mouth wide open uttering shrieks which no one could hear through the deafening tumult, was supremely funny.
The President made no attempt to quell the disturbance. It was all to the good. The greater the hatred against Adèle, the greater his chance, not only of forcing an acquittal now for Fleurette, but also of keeping the wave of sympathy for himself at full-tide, until he had the opportunity of getting Fleurette out of Orange. He was striving with all his might to catch his darling’s eye. But Fleurette’s glance was fixed on Adèle. She seemed to him to be fascinated with horror, mute and paralysed. She was looking on Adèle, and her dear little hand was fidgeting the corner of her kerchief.
Through the earsplitting uproar led by the women, Pochart and Danou, their sympathizers, men of their own choosing, vainly tried to get a hearing. As well try to shout down a tempestuous sea as these hundreds of women gloating over the spectacle of one of their own sex writhing in an agony of terror.
“Hein!” came in a stentorian shout from the grimy giant in the rear of the crowd; “thou wouldst slander the innocent girl with lies. Take that for thy pains.”
And he hurled the remnant of his raw carrot over the head of the intervening crowd at the unfortunate Adèle. It missed her by a hairbreadth, but the action delighted the crowd. They took up the cry: “Take that for thy pains!” and sent various missiles flying at the girl, who, crouching down on her knees, lay there like a bundle of goods just below the bar of the accused where Fleurette stood, gazing down at her, fascinated with horror.
Looking back later on that terrible moment, Chauvelin felt that it was the action of the grimy coal-heaver—or scavenger, whatever he was—that precipitated the catastrophe. He it was who egged on the rabble to virulent hatred against Adèle. It was he who by hurling that first missile at the girl brought in a further, more immense element of cruelty and horror into the situation. Certain it is that up to that moment Fleurette had appeared more dazed than horrified. She must even in her own gentle heart have felt a burning indignation against Adèle for the treacherous part which she had played, and if the girl’s arrest had been effected outside the Tribunal, she would perhaps never have actually realized what had brought it about. But
