dence so miraculously obtained. In 1806
France was still too near the Supreme Being of 1793 to talk about divine
justice; he therefore spared the jury all reference to the intervention
of heaven; but he said that earthly justice would be on the watch for
the mysterious accomplices who had set the senator at liberty, and he
sat down, confidently awaiting the verdict.

The jury believed there was a mystery, but they were all persuaded that
it came from the prisoners, who were probably concealing some matter of
a private interest of great importance to them.

Monsieur de Grandville, to whom a plot or machination of some kind was
quite evident, rose; but he seemed discouraged,--less, however, by the
new evidence than by the manifest opinion of the jury. He surpassed,
if anything, his speech of the previous evening; his argument was more
compact and logical; but he felt his fervor repelled by the coldness of
the jury; he spoke ineffectually, and he knew it,--a chilling situation
for an advocate. He called attention to the fact that the release of
the senator, as if by magic and clearly without the aid of any of the
accused or of Marthe, corroborated his previous argument. Yesterday the
prisoners could most surely rely on acquittal, and if they had, as the
prosecution claimed, the power to hold or to release the senator, they
certainly would not have released him until after their acquittal. He
endeavored to bring before the minds of the Court and jury the fact that
mysterious enemies, undiscovered as yet, could alone have struck the
accused this final blow.

Strange to say, the only minds Monsieur de Grandville reached with this
argument were those of the public prosecutor and the judges. The jury
listened perfunctorily; the audience, usually so favorable to prisoners,
were convinced of their guilt. In a court of justice the sentiments
of the crowd do unquestionably weigh upon the judges and the jury, and
_vice versa_. Seeing this condition of the minds about him, which could
be felt if not defined, the counsel uttered his last words in a tone of
passionate excitement caused by his conviction:--

"In the name of the accused," he cried, "I forgive you for the fatal
error you are about to commit, and which nothing can repair! We are the
victims of some mysterious and Machiavellian power. Marthe Michu was
inveigled by vile perfidy. You will discover this too late, when the
evil you now do will be irreparable."

Bordin simp