as that he had received a mission against a person travelling under the safeguard of the most solemn treaties, signed by all the allied sovereigns? and if he did accept such a mission, was it not doubly mean to have accepted money for carrying it out, and then to have deceived those whom he pretended had given it him? Should he not be regarded henceforth as one of those hateful creatures known of all men, who, under pressure of an accusation, hatches conspiracies, and denounces unknown fellow-citizens, to the sole end of arresting or diverting justice?" The Sieur de Maubreuil had listened to all this tirade with fiery impatience, and his solicitor had only been able to pacify him by allowing him the pen and paper which he demanded. When M. de Vatimesnil's speech was over, Maubreuil passed what he had just written to the president, then rose and said:--"_M. le président_, as a man who expects to be assassinated at any moment, I place this political deposition in your hands. Frenchmen, it is my honour I am bequeathing to all you who are here present. As a man on the brink of appearing before God, I swear that it was M. de Talleyrand who, by means of M. Laborie, sent me; that the prince forced me to sit down in his own arm-chair; that he offered me two hundred thousand livres income and the title of duke, if I accomplished my mission satisfactorily;[1] furthermore, the Emperor Alexander offered me his own horses; but, I repeat, if I accepted the mission I am blamed for, it was to save the emperor and his family." Here they again compelled Maubreuil to stop speaking, and the warders, taking hold of him by his shoulders, forced him down into his seat. Then his lawyer, Me. Couture, rose, addressed the king's counsel once more, and begged for pity's sake that no notice should be taken of his client's mad words. "Alas!" he cried, "the man whom you see before you, monsieur, is no longer M. de Maubreuil, but only the remains, the shade of M. de Maubreuil. A detention of _three years,_ three hundred and ninety days of which has been spent in solitary confinement without communication with a soul, _without even seeing his own counsel_, has deranged his reason. He is now nothing but the ruins of a man. For the love of humanity, do not take account of a speech which can only tell against him!" The judges, greatly embarrassed by what they had just heard, although their business was but to decide on the simple question of the competence or incompetence of their tribunal, deferred sentence until the following Tuesday, 22 April. Probably the delay was arranged, so those in court thought, in order to receive instructions from the château, and to act in accordance with those instructions. THE SITTING OF 22 APRIL