Camille Desmoulins, and
others were arrested on a warrant signed by such men as Cambaceres,
Carnot, and Prieur. Carnot in particular was a soldier of the highest
character and genius. He would have signed no such warrant had he not
thought the emergency pressing. Nor was the risk small. Danton was so
popular and so strong before a jury that the government appears to have
distrusted even Fouquier-Tinville, for an order was given, and held in
suspense, apparently to Henriot, to arrest the President and the Public
Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal, on the day of Danton's trial.

Under such a stimulant Fouquier did his best, but he felt himself to be
beaten. Examining Cambon, Danton broke out: "Do you believe us to be
conspirators? Look, he laughs, he don't believe it. Record that he has
laughed." Fouquier was at his wits' end. If the next day the jury were
asked if they had heard enough, and they answered, "No," there would be
an acquittal, and then Fouquier's own head would roll into the basket.
Probably there might even be insurrection. Fouquier wrote to the
Committee that they must obtain from the Convention a decree silencing
the defence. So grave was the crisis felt to be that the decree was
unanimously voted. When Fouquier heard that the decree was on its way,
he said, with a sigh of relief,--"Faith, we need it." But when it was
read, Danton sprung to his feet, raging, declaring that the public cried
out treason upon it. The President adjourned the court while the hall
resounded with the protests of the defendants and the shouts of the
police as they tore the condemned from the benches which they clutched
and dragged them through the corridors toward the prison. They emerged
no more until they mounted the carts which took them to the scaffold.

Nor was it safe to hesitate if one were attached to this court. Fouquier
had a clerk named Paris-Fabricius. Now Paris had been a friend of Danton
and took his condemnation to heart. He even declined to sign the
judgment, which it was his duty to do. The next day, when he presented
himself to Fouquier, Fouquier looked at him sourly, and observed, "We
don't want men who reason here; we want business done." The following
morning Paris did not appear. His friends were disturbed, but he was not
to be found. He had been cast into a secret dungeon in the prison of the
Luxembourg.

So, if a man were too rich it might go hard with him.
Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duc d'Orleans, af