visibly the fragments of a dinner--plates and soups, with several
bottles of cognac and wine. Justice was so indefatigable in France,
that its ministers were forced to mingle all the functions of public
and private life together; and to be intoxicated in the act of passing
sentence of death was no uncommon event.

The judges of those sectional tribunals were generally ruffians of the
lowest description, who, having made themselves notorious by violence
and Jacobinism, had driven away the usual magistracy, and, under the
pretext of administering justice, were actually driving a gainful
trade in robbery of every kind. The old costume of the courts of law
was of course abjured; and the new civic costume, which was obviously
constructed on the principle of leaving the lands free for butchery,
and preserving the garments free from any chance of being disfigured
by the blood of the victim--for they were the perfection of savage
squalidness--was displayed _a la rigueur_ on the bench. A short coat
without sleeves, the shirt sleeves tucked up as for instant execution,
the neck open, no collar, fierce mustaches, a head of clotted hair,
sometimes a red nightcap stuck on one side, and sometimes a red
handkerchief tied round it as a temporary "bonnet de nuit"--for the
judges frequently, in drunkenness or fatigue, threw themselves on the
bench or the floor, and slept--exhibited the regenerated aspect of
Themis in the capital of the polished world.

My name was now called. I shall not say with what a throb of heart I
heard it. But at the moment when I was stepping forward, I felt my
skirt pulled by one of the guard behind me. I looked, and recognized
through all his beard, and the hair that in profusion covered his
physiognomy, my police friend, who seemed to possess the faculty of
being every where--a matter, however, rendered easier to him by his
being in the employ of the government--and who simply whispered the
words--"Be firm, and acknowledge nothing." Slight as the hint was, it
had come in good time; for I had grown desperate from the sight of the
perpetual casualties round me, and, like Cassini's idea of the man
walking on the edge of the precipice, had felt some inclination to
jump off, and take my chance. But now contempt and defiance took the
place of despair; and instead of openly declaring my purposes and
performances, my mind was made up to leave them to find out what they
could.

On my being marched up to the foot o