"This is the blood of traitors," Javogues cried when the outburst had subsided, "and that is all I know. Traitors have no sex. When I see a traitor, I do not stop to ask if it be man, woman, or child, old or young! A traitor is a traitor! Were the mother who brought me forth or the child of my flesh to conspire against the Nation, I would strangle them with these my own hands!" Again the clamor rose to drown his words, but this time Goursac, rushing from side to side, shouted: "Let him continue! Let him continue!" "Of what I have done I am ready to give an accounting," Javogues continued disdainfully. "At the prison of Les Carmes, my hatchet sent down to Hell the soul of that arch-conspirator Dulan." He lifted his arms. "That is the blood these arms bear, and I glory in it. At the Abbaye, I myself purified the Nation of five traitors. At La Force--" But from the angry crowd rose the cry: "Enough! Enough!" One voice, deep and rumbling with an accent of doom, made itself heard: "We give the right of speech to a citoyen to defend himself, not to a criminal to recite his crimes!" Goursac, mounting to the tribune, secured a lull. "You have recited these executions," he cried, addressing Javogues. "By what authority did you constitute yourself a judge?" Javogues, opening his arms, said: "By the authority of popular justice." "Where is your warrant?" The Marseillais did not answer. The section, seeing where he was being led, kept an intense silence as Goursac's voice, rising in denunciation, continued: "You admit these deaths. You claim popular authority. Show us your warrant from any popular body, from any section, and you march from here unmolested." Javogues, turning to his companions, said in a low tone: "Save yourselves. I remain." The two moved--but forward to his side. The eyes of the assembly were on Goursac, who, white with the intensity of his passion, slowly stretched forth his finger: "Well?" He waited a moment, his figure rigid in denunciation. "No answer? Then I pronounce, before this assembly, that you have lied! I here declare that what you have done is not the work of a judge, but of a murderer! That when you declared you acted by popular authority, you slandered the Nation, and tried to fasten on it the stain of your guilt and the odium of massacre!" Then assembling all his powers, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Slanderer of the Nation!" He turned to the section. "Citoyens, these are the vipers that assail every life. No one of us is safe. They threaten the Assembly. They do not conceal their desire for its massacre. But to-night we hold one, this monster, this scum of the earth. We hold him, self-confessed and convicted. Citoyens, I declare to you we shall be guilty of cowardice if we now allow this monster to live another day!" "Aye, to prison with them!" "À la mort! À la mort!" "À la guillotine!" Above the confusion one shrill voice rose victorious, bearing the final decree of the mass.