It is a raw, chilly, marrow-searching day in the month of October, 1793. A spacious hall, known in this new and blessed era of Universal Regeneration, and Unlimited Throat-Cutting, as the Salle de la Liberté, in the Palais de Justice, hard by the prison of the Conciergerie, has been swept and garnished for the trial of the discrowned and desolate widow of “Louis Capet,” murdered on the scaffold in the Place de la Révolution last January. In a dark and filthy dungeon of that same Conciergerie Marie Antoinette has been immured since August. The walls of the Salle de la Liberté have been newly whitewashed--no voluptuous frescoes or oil painting in this abode of Republican simplicity, if you please: only patriotic lime-whiting and democratic glue--and the almost blinding glare of the stark walls brings out in strong relief the dark green canopy suspended over the heads of the Judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal, who are five in number, the President being one, Hermann. Above this precious conclave are the busts of Brutus--save the mark!--and two recent Revolutionary notorieties: the infamous Marat, deservedly done to death by Charlotte Corday and the member of the Convention, Lepelletier de St. Fargeau, who had voted for the death sentence on Louis XVI, and who immediately afterwards was stabbed to death by an ex-Garde du Corps in an eating house in the Palais National--once Palais Royal. The busts are crowned with scarlet caps of liberty, adorned with monstrous tri-coloured cockades, and are flanked by two huge oil lamps. There will be need of the lamps; for the deliberation of the tribunal will probably last far into the night. The judges sit at a long table which, although shabby, is somewhat pretentious in its upholstering, since the legs are of mahogany, and fluted, and the brazen feet are fashioned in the shape of griffin’s claws, and exhibit some traces of bygone gilding. This table is yet extant, and forms part of the furniture of the Court of Cassation, which at present holds its sittings in the old Salle de la Liberté. The Public Accuser has his place in front of the President; the jury--yes, this monstrous tribunal has a jury!--is to the left of the judges; and to the right is the desk of the Counsel for the defence. Behind him is the seat for the prisoners. A breast-high balustrade separates the Court from the space set apart for the public, which is ample enough, and is thronged, this dreary October morning, by a motley crew of _sans culottes_, mechanics, lamplighters, bargemen and coarse, loud-voiced women from the markets, some of them known as “_Tricoteuses_” and “Furies of the Guillotine.” Between the balustrade and the body of the Court runs a long gangway, at one extremity of which is a door, communicating by means of a narrow staircase with the Gaol of the Conciergerie.