St. Honore; great-voiced Danton knew that this was a beginning, not
an ending; and many other deputies were sure that having gone so far
they must go further. There were other heads to offer to the guillotine,
many others. The tumbrils must carry the daily food, and the stock of
such food must not be allowed to run short. Many were condemned already;
there were others waiting to be condemned; it would be well to get on
with the work expeditiously. Trials took time, though, truly, they need
not be long. There was one man waiting for whom nothing could be said.
The aristocrat, Lucien Bruslart, who had posed as an honest citizen, yet
had hidden an emigre in the city. Denounced by Citizeness Pauline
Vaison, who was declared with one consent to be a true patriot, what
hope could there be for him?

Yet this man found a strange advocate, no less a person than Raymond
Latour. The prosecution was short and convincing; the president's bell
sounded with a sense of finality in it; the women in the gallery were
ready to jeer at the next prisoner; in this case of Bruslart there was
no excitement at all. Then Raymond Latour rose, and the loud murmur of
astonishment quickly fell into silence. They had often heard and
applauded Deputy Latour; what was he doing here? There was going to be
excitement after all.

Raymond Latour was an orator, rough and passionate at times, yet seldom
failing to get into sympathy with his audience. He looked at the
white-faced, cringing prisoner, and he hated him, yet on his behalf he
spoke more eloquently than he had ever done before perhaps. A less
powerful advocate would not have been listened to. Latour's words were
hung upon and applauded at intervals. He could not deny the charges
brought against the prisoner; he was an aristocrat, he had helped an
emigre, but he was not the only aristocrat who had become a true and
worthy patriot. He had done many things which deserved acknowledgment.
His apartment had always been open to his fellows, he had helped many
with his money and his influence. Birth had made him an aristocrat, but
he had not fled from Paris; he had stayed to champion the people. That
surely was in his favor, seeing how powerful an incentive he had for
crossing the frontier--love. Of all the charges brought against him,
there was only one which counted--that he had helped an emigre. Citizens
might hiss, but ought they not first to understand who this emigre was?
She was, to begin with, an e