cation
at an early hour, and every avenue leading to the tribunal crammed with
people anxious to be present at this eventful crisis, the prisoners
took their places on the "bench of the accused," totally unaware of
the reason of the excitement they witnessed, and strangely puzzled to
conceive what unknown circumstance had reinvested the proceedings with a
new interest.

As I took my place among the rest, I stared with surprise at the scene:
the strange contrast between the thousands there, whose strained eyes
and feverish faces betokened the highest degree of excitement; and that
little group on which every look was turned, calm and even cheerful.
There sat George Cadoudal in the midst of them, his hands clasped in
those at either side of him; his strongly-marked features perfectly
at rest, and his eyes bent with a steady stare on the bench where the
judges were seated. Moreau was not present, nor did I see some of the
_Chouans_ whom I remembered on the former day.

The usual formal proclamation of the court being made, silence was
called by the crier,--a useless precaution, as throughout that vast
assembly not a whisper was to be heard. A conversation of some minutes
took place between the Procureur and the counsel for the prisoners, in
which I recognized the voice of Monsieur Baillot, my own advocate; which
was interrupted by the President, desiring that the proceedings should
commence.

The Procureur-General bowed and took his seat, while the President,
turning towards George, said:--

"George Cadoudal, you have hitherto persisted in a course of blank
denial regarding every circumstance of the conspiracy with which you
are charged. You have asserted your ignorance of persons and places with
which we are provided with proof to show you are well acquainted. You
have neither accounted for your presence in suspected situations,
nor satisfactorily shown what were the objects of your intimacy with
suspected individuals. The court now desires to ask you whether, at this
stage of the proceedings, you wish to offer more explicit revelations,
or explain any of the dubious events of your career."

"I will answer any question you put to me," replied George, sternly;
"but I have lived too long in another country not to have learned some
of its usages, and I feel no desire to become my own accuser. Let him
there" (he pointed to the Procureur-General) "do his office; he is the
paid and salaried assailant of the innocent."