atening the judges and shouting, "A la lanterne!" It was even
necessary to keep numerous troops and artillery constantly ready to act in
the courtyard of the Chatelet. The judges, who had just acquitted M. de
Besenval in an affair nearly similar, doubtless dreaded the effects of
this fury. When they refused to hear Favras's witnesses in exculpation,
he compared them to the tribunal of the Inquisition. The principal charge
against him was founded on a letter from M. de Foucault, asking him,
"where are your troops? in which direction will they enter Paris? I
should like to be employed among them." Favras was condemned to make the
'amende honorable' in front of the Cathedral, and to be hanged at the
Place de Greve. He heard this sentence with wonderful calmness, and said
to his judges, "I pity you much if the testimony of two men is sufficient
to induce you to condemn." The judge having said to him, "I have no other
consolation to hold out to you than that which religion affords," he
replied, nobly, "My greatest consolation is that which I derive from my
innocence."--"Biographic Universelle"]

On the morning of the Sunday following this execution M. de la Villeurnoy
came to my house to tell me that he was going that day to the public
dinner of the King and Queen to present Madame de Favras and her son, both
of them in mourning for the brave Frenchman who fell a sacrifice for his
King; and that all the royalists expected to see the Queen load the
unfortunate family with favours. I did all that lay in my power to
prevent this proceeding. I foresaw the effect it would have upon the
Queen's feeling heart, and the painful constraint she would experience,
having the horrible Santerre, the commandant of a battalion of the
Parisian guard, behind her chair during dinner-time. I could not make M.
de la Villeurnoy comprehend my argument; the Queen was gone to mass,
surrounded by her whole Court, and I had not even means of apprising her
of his intention.

When dinner was over I heard a knocking at the door of my apartment, which
opened into the corridor next that of the Queen; it was herself. She asked
me whether there was anybody with me; I was alone; she threw herself into
an armchair, and told me she came to weep with me over the foolish conduct
of the ultras of the King's party. "We must fall," said she, "attacked as
we are by men who possess every talent and shrink from no crime, while we
are defended only by those wh