-as she calls that period, dating in such terms a long epistle to
Barbaroux--was one to the Committee of Public Safety, in which she begs
that a miniature-painter may be sent to her to paint her portrait, so
that she may leave this token of remembrance to her friends. It is only
in this, as the end approaches, that we see in her conduct any thought
for her own self, any suggestion that she is anything more than a
instrument in the hands of Fate.

On the 15th, at eight o'clock in the morning, her trial began before the
Revolutionary Tribunal. A murmur ran through the hall as she appeared in
her gown of grey-striped dimity, composed and calm--always calm.

The trial opened with the examination of witnesses; into that of the
cutler, who had sold her the knife, she broke impatiently.

"These details are a waste of time. It is I who killed Marat."

The audience gasped, and rumbled ominously. Montane turned to examine
her.

"What was the object of your visit to Paris?" he asks.

"To kill Marat."

"What motives induced you to this horrible deed?"

"His many crimes."

"Of what crimes do you accuse him?"

"That he instigated the massacre of September; that he kept alive the
fires of civil war, so that he might be elected dictator; that he sought
to infringe upon the sovereignty of the People by causing the arrest and
imprisonment of the deputies to the Convention on May 31st."

"What proof have you of this?"

"The future will afford the proof. Marat hid his designs behind a mask
of patriotism."

Montane shifted the ground of his interrogatory.

"Who were your accomplices in this atrocious act?"

"I have none."

Montane shook his head. "You cannot convince anyone that a person of
your age and sex could have conceived such a crime unless instigated by
some person or persons whom you are unwilling to name."

Charlotte almost smiled. "That shows but a poor knowledge of the human
heart. It is easier to carry out such a project upon the strength of
one's own hatred than upon that of others." And then, raising her voice,
she proclaimed: "I killed one man to save a hundred thousand; I killed
a villain to save innocents; I killed a savage Wild-beast to give repose
to France. I was a Republican before the Revolution. I never lacked for
energy."

What more was there to say? Her guilt was completely established. Her
fearless self-obssession was not to be ruffled. Yet Fouquier-Tinville,
the dread prosecutor, made the a