The jury in a criminal trial in Paris does not, as a London jury does, melt into disappearance before the final verdict. There are a few solemn words from the judge, there is a rustle as the lawyers gather up papers and sit back, and then fourteen very ordinary, very weary good men and true, whose faces we had only seen in profile until then, rise in their places. Their white and tired faces shine suddenly a pasty yellow in the electric lamplight. The good men of the jury show us their backs and walk slowly behind the desk of the Public Prosecutor to a little door which we had not noticed till then, and which has just been opened. Through this freshly opened door we stare across the court up a flight of narrow stairs with red and grey carpets on them. The verdict will come, presently, down that flight of narrow stairs. The small door closes, and we wait. As a rule a big criminal trial finishes late in the evening. Everybody is sick of it. For the sake of the prisoner, for the sake of the judge, for the sake of the jury, for the sake of the lawyers, for the sake of the public, every one wants to get it over. Nobody wants yet another adjournment. So it is usually at night that one sits and waits for the verdict in a big Paris criminal trial, and although I have seen exactly the same scene, and endured exactly the same sensations many times, the scene has never lost its dramatic force, and the sensations are always new. A sense of relief comes first. We have seen the prisoner, in a state of semi-collapse as a rule, going out through the door of the dock to the room behind it, where, on this last evening of the trial, the prisoner is allowed to wait for the verdict which is to be rendered before her return. We feel the relief that one feels when the fighting is over, mingled with suspense and with pity for the wretched creature who is waiting and is wondering. We realize that we are hungry, and rush off to get a little food. We dare not stay to eat it, and return with it to court again. The appearance of the court-room has changed during the few minutes of our scamper to the buffet down below for sandwiches. We have brought them back with us, and other people are munching food, too, in the dust, the heat, the squalor of this room from which the majesty of justice has departed with the red robed tribunal, the jury, and the prisoner. There is a hubbub of excited talk and much discussion. Municipal guards forget to keep order and chat with us and with the barristers of the probabilities and possibilities of the verdict. Every now and then there is a hubbub of excitement and a sudden deathly stillness. The little door, beyond which we can see those red and grey carpeted stairs, has opened. The jury are returning! No, it is a false alarm. They are not quite clear on some formal point or other, and they have sent for the judge. After one or more of these alarms, suddenly, when nobody has expected it, the little door opens and remains open.