The jury really are returning this time. We see them walk slowly down those narrow red and grey stairs, and file slowly into the box. Their faces tell us nothing, but we all try to read them. The presiding judge and his two assistant judges walk slowly in and take their seats, at the long table. On their right, the red robed Public Prosecutor who has followed them, stands at his desk, on their left the lawyers for the defence stand in their seats in front of the empty dock. The stillness which was broken for a moment while the court came in becomes something tangible, something quite painful now. It has a quality of the sensation one feels in a diving bell. Our eardrums tingle with it. Then the judge’s voice breaks the strain. “There must be not the least noise,” he says. “I will allow no demonstration of any kind, whatever the verdict may be.” Somebody laughs, and is hushed down with indignant sibilance. We know that there will be a demonstration whatever the judge may say. There has never yet been a French trial without one. “Mr. Foreman of the Jury,” says the judge, “Be kind enough to let us know the result of your deliberations.” If possible the silence becomes greater yet. Then: “On my honour and on my conscience,” says the foreman of the jury “before God and before men, the answer is ... to all questions.” And pandemonium breaks forth. The answer to the questions has to be “Yes” or “No”. The jury may not amplify it. They will be asked, in the trial of Madame Caillaux, to decide whether there was murder, whether there was murder with premeditation or without it. They will be asked to state whether there are extenuating circumstances, or whether there are none. On these answers, on this simple “Yes” or “No” depends the fate of the prisoner. We see the judge’s mouth open and shut, we see his hand rise and fall, but we have heard no sound of his voice in the hubbub which the declaration of the verdict has let loose. Then there is silence again. The judge has ordered the prisoner to be brought in. The verdict is told her, and the sentence, if there is a sentence, is rendered. This is the way in which the curtain will fall on the last act of the Caillaux Drama. Will it be a final curtain? And what will the jury’s answer be to the questions which will be put to them? That, no man can answer now. Madame Caillaux may of course be acquitted, though public opinion in Paris considers this exceedingly unlikely. She may be found guilty of murder with premeditation. The sentence decreed by the Code for this is death, and nobody believes in or anticipates the likelihood of such a verdict. If the verdict be “Murder without premeditation,” if the jury finds extenuating circumstances, the Code decrees a minimum of five years, either hard labour or confinement in a prison, and a maximum of ten years. There is also the possibility that a sentence may be passed of hard labour or imprisonment for life.