France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction
"Juliette Marny, you are hereby accused of having, by a false and
malicious denunciation, slandered the person of a representative of the
people; you caused the Revolutionary Tribunal, through this same
mischievous act, to bring a charge against this representative of the
people, to institute a domiciliary search in his house, and to waste
valuable time, which otherwise belonged to the service of the Republic.
And this you did, not from a misguided sense of duty towards your
country, but in wanton and impure spirit, to be rid of the surveillance
of one who had your welfare at heart, and who tried to prevent your
leading the immoral life which had become a public scandal, and which
has now brought you before this court of justice, to answer to a charge
of wantonness, impurity, defamation of character, and corruption of
public morals. In proof of which I now place before the court your own
admission, that more than one citizen of the Republic has been led by
you into immoral relationship with yourself; and further, your own
admission, that your accusation against Citizen-Deputy Déroulède was
false and mischievous; and further, and finally, your immoral and
obscene correspondence with some persons unknown, which you vainly tried
to destroy. In consideration of which, and in the name of the people of
France, whose spokesman I am, I demand that you be taken hence from this
Hall of Justice to the Place de la Révolution, in full view of the
citizens of Paris and its environs, and clad in a soiled white garment,
emblem of the smirch upon your soul, that there you be publicly whipped
by the hands of Citizen Samson, the public executioner; after which,
that you be taken to the prison of the Salpêtriere, there to be further
detained at the discretion of the Committee of Public Safety. And now,
Juliette Marny, you have heard the indictment preferred against you,
have you anything to say, why the sentence which I have demanded shall
not be passed upon you?"
Jeers, shouts, laughter, and curses greeted this speech of the Public
Prosecutor.
All that was most vile and most bestial in this miserable, misguided
people struggling for Utopia and Liberty, seemed to come to the surface,
whilst listening to the reading of this most infamous document.
The delight of seeing this beautiful, ethereal woman, almost unearthly
in her proud aloofness, smirched with the vilest mud to which the
vituperation of man can contrive to sink, was a veritable treat to the
degraded wretches.
The women yelled hoarse approval; the children, not understanding,
laughed in mirthless glee; the men, with loud curses, showed their
appreciation of Foucquier-Tinville's speech.
As for Déroulède, the mental agony he endured surpassed any torture
which the devils, they say, reserve for the damned. His sinews cracked
in his frantic efforts to control himself; he dug his finger-nails into
his flesh, trying by physical pain to drown the sufferings of his mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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