ins were
prisoners, and after this failure of the insurrection the revolutionary
government proceeded to their trial. When their trial was decided on,
this captivity became more strict. They were imprisoned for a few days
in the Carmelite convent in the Rue de Vaugeraud, a monastery converted
into a prison, and rendered sinister by the bloody traces of the
massacres of September.

_III.--The Judges at the Bar_

On October 22, their _acte d'accusation_ was read to them, and their
trial began on the 26th. Never since the Knights Templars had a party
appeared more numerous, more illustrious, or more eloquent. The renown
of the accused, their long possession of power, their present danger,
and that love of vengeance which arises in men's hearts at mighty
reverses of fortune, had collected a crowd in the precincts of the
revolutionary tribunal.

At ten o'clock the accused were brought in. They were twenty-two; and
this fatal number, inscribed in the earliest lists of the proscription,
on May 31, at eleven o'clock, entered the _salle d'audience,_ between
two files of _gens d'armes,_ and took their places in silence on the
prisoners' bench.

Ducos was the first to take his seat: scarcely twenty-eight years of
age, his black and piercing eyes, the flexibility of his features, and
the elegance of his figure revealed one of those ardent temperaments in
whom everything is light, even heroism.

Mainveille followed him, the youthful deputy of Marseilles, of the same
age as Ducos, and of an equally striking but more masculine beauty than
Barbaroux. Duprat, his countryman and friend, accompanied him to the
tribunal. He was followed by Duchatel, deputy of Deux Sevres, aged
twenty-seven years, who had been carried to the tribunal almost in a
dying state wrapped in blankets, to vote against the death of the
"Tyrant," and who was termed, from this act and this costume, the
"Spectre of Tyranny."

Carra, deputy of Saone and Loire at the Convention, sat next to
Duchatel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his large
head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of
Duchatel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in
attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the
excesses of the people.

A man of rustic appearance and garb, Duperret, the involuntary victim of
Charlotte Corday, sat next to Carra. He was of noble birth, but
cultivated with his own hands the sma