bably be
the loss of our heads. But even that might be more easily accomplished
than to impart reason to a woman."

"Or unselfishness, it seems, to a man," she returned, as she swept
angrily from the room.

CHAPTER XXII. 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. And against this thing of which he was now accused, Robespierre
bade the Deputies of the jury balance the young man's past, and the much
that he had done for the Revolution, and to offer him, in consideration
of all that, a chance of making atonement and regaining the position of
trust and of brotherly affection which for a moment he had forfeited.

The Court was stirred by the address. They knew