ectator, he had seen sentenced and sent to the
guillotine. The man was the same, with his obstinate, opinionated look;
the procedure was the same. He gave his answers in a cunning, brutish
way that ruined the effect even of the most convincing. His cavilling
and chicanery and the accusations he levelled against his subordinates,
made you forget he was fulfilling the honourable task of defending his
honour and his life. Everything was uncertain, every statement
disputed,--position of the armies, total of forces engaged, munitions of
war, orders given, orders received, movements of troops; nobody knew
anything. It was impossible to make head or tail of these confused,
nonsensical, aimless operations which had ended in disaster; defending
counsel and the accused himself were as much in the dark as were
accuser, judges, and jury, and strange to say, not a soul would admit,
whether to himself or to other people, that this was the case. The
judges took a childish delight in drawing plans and discussing problems
of tactics and strategy, while the prisoner constantly betrayed his
inborn predilection for crooked ways.

The arguments dragged on endlessly. And all the time Gamelin could see
on the rough roads of the north the ammunition wagons stogged in the
mire and the guns capsized in the ruts, and along all the ways the
broken and beaten columns flying in disorder, while from all sides the
enemy's cavalry was debouching by the abandoned defiles. And from this
host of men betrayed he could hear a mighty shout going up in accusation
of the General. When the hearing closed, darkness was falling on the
hall, and the head of Marat gleamed half-seen like a phantom above the
President's head. The jury was called upon to give judgment, but was of
two minds. Gamelin, in a hoarse, strangled voice, but in resolute
accents, declared the accused guilty of treason against the Republic,
and a murmur of approval rose from the crowd, a flattering unction to
his youthful virtue. The sentence was read by the light of torches which
cast a lurid, uncertain gleam on the prisoner's hollow temples beaded
with drops of sweat. Outside the doors, on the steps crowded with the
customary swarm of cockaded harridans, Gamelin could hear his name,
which the habitues of the Tribunal were beginning to know, passed from
mouth to mouth, and was assailed by a bevy of _tricoteuses_ who shook
their fists in his face, demanding the head of _the Austrian_.

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