ect of throwing me more willingly into
the views of the conspirators, and, as I was watched in every minute
particular, of establishing my own guilt and leading to the detection of
others.

Then came a narrative of his visits to my quarters, in which the
omission of all mention of his name in my report was clearly shown as an
evidence of my conscious culpability. And, to my horror and confusion,
a new witness was produced,--the sentinel, Pierre Dulong, who mounted
guard at the gate of the chateau on the morning when I passed the Abbe,
through the park.

With an accuracy beyond my belief, he repeated all out conversations,
making the dubious hints and dark suggestions which he himself threw out
as much mine as his own; and having at length given a full picture of
my treacherous conduct, he introduced my intimacy with Beauvais as the
crowning circumstance of my guilt.

"I shall pause here," said he, with a cool malignity, but ill concealed
beneath a look of affected sorrow--"I shall pause here, and, with the
permission of the court, allow the accused to make, if he will, a full
confession of his criminality; or, if he refuse this, I shall proceed
to the disclosure of other circumstances, by which it will be seen that
these dark designs met favor and countenance in higher quarters; and
among those, too, whose sex, if nothing else, should have removed them
beyond the contamination of confederacy with assassination."

"The court," said the President, sternly, "will enter into no compromise
of this kind. You are here to give such evidence as you possess, fully,
frankly, and without reserve; nor can we permit you to hold out any
promises to the prisoner that his confession of guilt can afford a
screen to the culpability of others."

"I demand," cried the Procureur-General, "a full disclosure from the
witness of everything he knows concerning this conspiracy."

"In that case I shall speak," said the Abbe.

At this instant a noise was heard in the hall without; a half murmur ran
through the court; and suddenly the heavy curtain was drawn aside, and a
loud voice called out,--

"In the name of the Republic, one and indivisible, an order of council."

The messenger, splashed and covered with mud, advanced through the
court, and delivered a packet into the hands of the President, who,
having broken the large seals, proceeded leisurely to read it over.

At the same moment I felt my arm gently touched, and a small pencil no