f the platform between two
frightful-looking ruffians, whose coats and trousers seemed to have
been dyed in gore, to show that they were worthy of the murders of
September, and who, to make "assurance doubly sure," wore on their
sword-belts the word "September," painted in broad characters, I
remained for a while unquestioned, until they turned over a pile of
names which they had flung on the table before them. At last their
perplexity was relieved by one of the clerks, who pronounced my name.
I was then interrogated in nearly the same style as before the
committee of my first captors. I gave them short answers.

"Who are you?" asked the principal distributor of rabble justice. The
others stooped forward, pens in hand, to record my conviction.

My answer was--

"I am a man." (Murmurs on the platform.)

"Whence come you?"

"From your prison."

"You are not a Frenchman?"

"No, thank Heaven!" (Murmurs again.)

"Beware, sir, of insolence to the tribunal. We can send you instantly
to punishment."

"I know it. Why then try me at all?"

"Because, prisoner, we desire to hear the truth first."

"First or last, can you bear to hear it?" (Angry looks, but more
attention.)

"We have no time to waste--the business of the Republic must be done.
Are you a citizen?"

"I am; a citizen of the world."

"You must not equivocate with justice. Where did you live before you
were arrested?"

"On the globe." (A half-suppressed laugh among the crowd in the back
ground.)

"What profession?"

"None."

"On what then do you live, have lived, or expect to live?"

"To-day on nothing, for your guards have given me nothing. Yesterday,
I lived on what I could get. To-morrow, it depends on circumstances
whether I shall want any thing." (A low murmur of applause among the
bystanders, who now gathered closer to the front.)

"Prisoner," said the chief, swilling a glass of cognac to strengthen
the solemnity of his jurisprudence, "the Republic must not be trifled
with. You are arraigned of _incivisme_. Of what country are you a
subject?"

"Of France, while I remain on her territory."

"Have you fought for France?"

"I have; for her laws, her liberty, her property, and her honour."
(Bravo! from the crowd.)

"Yet you are not a Republican?"

"No; no more than you are."

This produced confusion on the bench. The hit was contemptuously
accidental; but it was a home-thrust at the chief, who had former been
a domestic in the Tui