After four days’ mockery of justice, the twenty-two were declared guilty of having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and the whole were condemned to die. A cry of horror burst from the condemned, for many of them could not believe that innocent men could be sent to the scaffold. Valasé, one of the youngest, slipped from his seat to the floor. “What, Valasé! art losing courage now?” cried his friend Brissot, upholding him. “No; I am dying!” returned Valasé; and his fingers quivered about the handle of the poniard with which he had taken his own life. Silent horror for a moment prevailed; the Girondists blushed and bowed their heads before their dead companion, who had given them an example of fearlessness in meeting death. Only one, named Boileau, showed cowardice. He cast his hat into the air and screamed, “I don’t belong to these men! I am a Jacobin!” But instead of pity he only gained contempt. And now a cry was heard; it came from Camille Desmoulins: “Let me fly,” he cried; “it is my book which has killed them!” But the crowd seized Desmoulins, and forced him to remain. The twenty-two came down from the high seats upon which they had heard their trial and sentence, and for a moment stood round the dead body of their friend, who had shown them how to die. Almost simultaneously they raised their hands and cried, “Innocent! Long live the republic!” Then they cast all the money they had with them amongst the crowding, storming people, who greedily seized it. This was done, not to excite the mob to revolt, but with the thought that, their death at hand, they had no farther need of wealth. There was something strangely classic and Roman-like in their death. They left the hall singing loudly the celebrated hymn, the “Marseillaise;” and in reference to their death, they sang with amazing power the celebrated two lines, “March on, march on! O children of the land, The day, the hour of glory, is at hand!” This terrible hymn they were still singing as they entered their prison. It was now late in the evening, and they were to suffer on the following morning. The tribunal had decreed that the yet warm corpse of Valasé should be carried back to prison, conveyed in the same cart with his accomplices to the scaffold, and interred with their bodies. The only sentence, perhaps, which punished the dead. Four men-at-arms carried the body upon a litter, and thus the procession reached the prison. The twenty-two were to pass the night in the same room, the corpse in one corner. The twenty-one—even Boileau, who repented of his momentary cowardice—came, one by one, and kissed the dead man’s hand, then covered his face, saying, “To-morrow, brother!” One Bailleul, a Girondist and a Conventionist, but who had escaped the proscription, yet had not left Paris, had promised that, after the trial, he would prepare and send to the prison, either a triumphant or a funereal supper, according to the sentence.