‘Le crime faite la honte, et non pas l’échafaud.’ To-morrow, at eight, I am to be tried.” On the morning of the 17th, she was led before her judges. She was dressed with care, and had never looked more lovely. Her bearing was so imposing and dignified, that the spectators and the judges seemed to stand arraigned before her. She interrupted the first witness, by declaring that it was she who had killed Marat. “Who inspired you with so much hatred against him?” asked the president. “I needed not the hatred of others, I had enough of my own,” she energetically replied. “Besides, we do not execute well that which we have not ourselves conceived.” “What, then, did you hate in Marat?” “His crimes.” “Do you think that you have assassinated all the Marats?” “No; but now that he is dead, the rest may fear.” She answered other questions with equal firmness and laconism. Her project, she declared, had been formed since the 31st of May. “She had killed one man to save a hundred thousand. She was a republican long before the Revolution, and had never failed in energy.” “What do you understand by energy?” asked the president. “That feeling,” she replied, “which induces us to cast aside selfish considerations, and sacrifice ourselves for our country.” Fouquier Tinville here observed, alluding to the sure blow she had given, that she must be well practiced in crime. “The monster takes me for an assassin!” she exclaimed, in a tone thrilling with indignation. This closed the debates, and her defender rose. It was not Doulcet de Pontecoulant—who had not received her letter—but Chauveau de la Garde, chosen by the president. Charlotte gave him an anxious look, as though she feared he might seek to save her at the expense of honor. He spoke, and she perceived that her apprehensions were unfounded. Without excusing her crime or attributing it to insanity, he pleaded for the fervor of her conviction; which he had the courage to call sublime. The appeal proved unavailing. Charlotte Corday was condemned. Without deigning to answer the president, who asked her if she had aught to object to the penalty of death being carried out against her, she rose, and walking up to her defender, thanked him gracefully. “These gentlemen,” said she, pointing to the judges, “have just informed me that the whole of my property is confiscated. I owe something in the prison: as a proof of my friendship and esteem, I request you to pay this little debt.” On returning to the conciergerie, she found an artist, named Hauer, waiting for her, to finish her portrait, which he had begun at the tribunal. They conversed freely together, until the executioner, carrying the red chemise destined for assassins, and the scissors with which he was to cut her hair off, made his appearance.