n it suddenly appears that old
Foulon is alive; nay, that he is here, in early morning, in the streets
of Paris; the extortioner, the plotter, who would make the people eat
grass, and was a liar from the beginning!--It is even so. The deceptive
'sumptuous funeral' (of some domestic that died); the hiding-place at
Vitry towards Fontainbleau, have not availed that wretched old man. Some
living domestic or dependant, for none loves Foulon, has betrayed him to
the Village. Merciless boors of Vitry unearth him; pounce on him,
like hell-hounds: Westward, old Infamy; to Paris, to be judged at the
Hotel-de-Ville! His old head, which seventy-four years have bleached,
is bare; they have tied an emblematic bundle of grass on his back; a
garland of nettles and thistles is round his neck: in this manner; led
with ropes; goaded on with curses and menaces, must he, with his old
limbs, sprawl forward; the pitiablest, most unpitied of all old men.

Sooty Saint-Antoine, and every street, mustering its crowds as he
passes,--the Place de Greve, the Hall of the Hotel-de-Ville will
scarcely hold his escort and him. Foulon must not only be judged
righteously; but judged there where he stands, without any delay.
Appoint seven judges, ye Municipals, or seventy-and-seven; name
them yourselves, or we will name them: but judge him! (Histoire
Parlementaire, ii. 146-9.) Electoral rhetoric, eloquence of Mayor
Bailly, is wasted explaining the beauty of the Law's delay. Delay, and
still delay! Behold, O Mayor of the People, the morning has worn itself
into noon; and he is still unjudged!--Lafayette, pressingly sent for,
arrives; gives voice: This Foulon, a known man, is guilty almost beyond
doubt; but may he not have accomplices? Ought not the truth to be
cunningly pumped out of him,--in the Abbaye Prison? It is a new light!
Sansculottism claps hands;--at which hand-clapping, Foulon (in
his fainness, as his Destiny would have it) also claps. "See! they
understand one another!" cries dark Sansculottism, blazing into fury
of suspicion.--"Friends," said 'a person in good clothes,' stepping
forward, "what is the use of judging this man? Has he not been judged
these thirty years?" With wild yells, Sansculottism clutches him, in
its hundred hands: he is whirled across the Place de Greve, to the
'Lanterne,' Lamp-iron which there is at the corner of the Rue de la
Vannerie; pleading bitterly for life,--to the deaf winds. Only with the
third rope (for two ropes