In the debate and cross-questioning that followed we must depend mainly upon the notes of Lebrun,[154] for they are more living, although they are more disconnected, than the official report. We discover in them the passionate series of outbursts, but a series which one must believe to have had a definite purpose. There was neither hope of convincing the tribunal nor of presenting a legal argument with effect. What Danton was trying to do in this court, which was not occupied with a trial, but merely in a process of condemnation, was to use it as a rostrum from which he could address the people, the general public, upon whose insurrection he depended. He perhaps depended also on the jury, for, carefully chosen as they were, they yet might be moved by a man who had never failed to convince by his extraordinary power of language. He carries himself exactly as though he were technically what he is in fact—a prisoner before an informal group of executioners, who appeals for justice to the crowd. He pointed at Cambon, who had sat by him on the Committee, and said, “Come now, Cambon, do you think we are conspirators? Look, he is laughing; he believes no such thing.” Then he turned, laughing himself, to the jury and said, “Write down in your notes that he laughed.” Again, he uses phrases like these: “We are here for a form, but if we are to have full liberty to speak, and if the French people is what it should be, it will be my business later to ask their pardon for my accusers.” To which Camille answered, “Oh, we shall be allowed to speak, and that is all we want,” and the group of Indulgents laughed heartily. It was just after this that he began that great harangue in answer to the questions of the judge, an effort whose tone reaches to this day. It is, perhaps, the most striking example of a personal appeal that can be discovered. The opportunities for such are rare, for in the vast majority of historical cases where a man has pleaded for his life, it has either been before a well-organised court, or before a small number of determined enemies, or by the lips of one who was paid for his work and who ignored the art of political oratory. The unique conditions of the French Revolution made such a scene possible, perhaps for the only time in history.