At last the case was called on, and the jury sworn. Reading over the names of the witnesses caused another stir among the crowd who were burning with curiosity. At those of Madame Bonnehon and M. de Lachesnaye the heads swayed from side to side; but Jacques particularly impassioned the ladies, who followed him with their eyes. As soon as the accused were brought in, each between two gendarmes, the public never ceased looking at them; and, criticising their appearance, found that they both looked low and ferocious, like a couple of bandits. Roubaud, in his dark jacket, with a necktie arranged after the manner of a person neglectful of his appearance, caused surprise by his prematurely old manner, and his stupid-looking face bursting with fat. As to Cabuche, he was as everyone expected to find him. Wearing a long blue blouse he seemed the very type of an assassin, with enormous fists, and a carnivorous jaw. Just one of those fellows whom you would not care to knock up against at the corner of a wood on a dark night. The examination of the prisoner confirmed this bad impression, and some of his replies aroused violent murmurs. To all the questions addressed to him by the President, Cabuche answered that he did not know. He did not know how it was that the watch had got to his hut, he did not know why he had allowed the real assassin to run away. He persevered in his story of this mysterious unknown, whose flight he had heard in the impenetrable darkness. Questioned as to his bestial passion for his unfortunate victim, he began stammering in such a sudden, violent fit of anger, that the two gendarmes seized him by the arms. No, no; he did not love her, he did not want her; all these tales were falsehoods. The mere thought would have been an infamy--she who was a lady, whereas he had been in prison and lived like a savage! Then, when he became calm, he fell into doleful silence, confining himself to monosyllables, indifferent to the verdict and sentence that might ensue. Roubaud, in the same way, kept to what the accusation called his system. He related how and why he had killed Grandmorin, and denied all participation in the murder of his wife; but he did so in broken and almost incoherent phrases, with sudden failures of memory, and with eyes so troubled, and a voice so thick, that at times he seemed to search for and invent the details. But as the President urged him on, pointing out the absurdities in his narrative, he ended by shrugging his shoulders and refused to answer. What was the use of speaking the truth, since lies were logic?