s pocket, he stood
hesitating a few moments; then, like a man who has made up his mind and
says to himself "the sooner the better," he turned his steps to the
Tuileries and found his way into the antechamber of the Committee of
General Security.

* * * * *

The same day, at three o'clock of the afternoon, Evariste Gamelin was
seated on the jurors' bench along with fourteen colleagues, most of whom
he knew, simple-minded, honest, patriotic folks, savants, artists or
artisans,--a painter like himself, an artist in black-and-white, both
men of talent, a surgeon, a cobbler, a _ci-devant_ marquis, who had
given high proofs of patriotism, a printer, two or three small
tradesmen, a sample lot in a word of the inhabitants of Paris. There
they sat, in the workman's blouse or bourgeois coat, with their hair
close-cropped _a la Titus_ or clubbed _a la catogan_; there were
cocked-hats tilted over the eyes, round hats clapped on the back of the
head, red caps of liberty smothering the ears. Some were dressed in
coat, flapped waistcoat and breeches, as in olden days, others in the
_carmagnole_ and striped trousers of the sansculottes. Wearing top-boots
or buckled shoes or sabots, they offered in their persons every variety
of masculine attire prevalent at that date. Having all of them occupied
their places on several previous occasions, they seemed very much at
their ease, and Gamelin envied them their unconcern. His own heart was
thumping, his ears roaring; a mist was before his eyes and everything
about him took on a livid tinge.

When the usher announced the opening of the sitting, three judges took
their places on a raised platform of no great size in front of a green
table. They wore hats cockaded and crowned with great black plumes and
the official cloak with a tricolour riband from which a heavy silver
medal was suspended on the breast. In front of them at the foot of the
dais, sat the deputy of the Public Prosecutor, similarly attired. The
clerk of the court had a seat between the judges' bench and the
prisoner's chair, at present unoccupied. To Gamelin's eyes these men
wore a different aspect from that of every day; they seemed nobler,
graver, more alarming, albeit their bearing was commonplace enough as
they turned over papers, beckoned to an usher or leant back to listen to
some communication from a juryman or an officer of the court.

Above the judges' heads hung the tables of the Rights