Then the young advocate entrusted with the defence in his turn spoke. And
he really said what there was to say with great clearness and precision.
He was of a different school from that of the public prosecutor: his
eloquence was very simple and smooth, his only passion seemed to be zeal
for truth. Moreover, it was sufficient for him to show Salvat's career in
its proper light, to depict him pursued by social fatalities since his
childhood, and to explain the final action of his career by all that he
had suffered and all that had sprung up in his dreamy brain. Was not his
crime the crime of one and all? Who was there that did not feel, if only
in a small degree, responsible for that bomb which a penniless, starving
workman had deposited on the threshold of a wealthy man's abode--a
wealthy man whose name bespoke the injustice of the social system: so
much enjoyment on the one hand and so much privation on the other! If one
of us happened to lose his head, and felt impelled to hasten the advent
of happiness by violence in such troublous times, when so many burning
problems claimed solution, ought he to be deprived of his life in the
name of justice, when none could swear that they had not in some measure
contributed to his madness? Following up this question, Salvat's counsel
dwelt at length on the period that witnessed the crime, a period of so
many scandals and collapses, when the old world was giving birth to a new
one amidst the most terrible struggles and pangs. And he concluded by
begging the jury to show themselves humane, to resist all passion and
terror, and to pacify the rival classes by a wise verdict, instead of
prolonging social warfare by giving the starvelings yet another martyr to
avenge.
It was past six o'clock when M. de Larombiere began to sum up in a
partial and flowery fashion, in which one detected how grieved and angry
he was at having such a shrill little voice. Then the judges and the
jurors withdrew, and the prisoner was led away, leaving the spectators
waiting amidst an uproar of feverish impatience. Some more ladies had
fainted, and it had even been necessary to carry out a gentleman who had
been overcome by the cruel heat. However, the others stubbornly remained
there, not one of them quitting his place.
"Ah! it won't take long now," said Massot. "The jurors brought their
verdict all ready in their pockets. I was looking at them while that
little advocate was telling them such sensible things. They all looked as
if they were comfortably asleep in the gloom."
Then Duthil turned to the Princess and asked her, "Are you still hungry?"
"Oh! I'm starving," she replied. "I shall never be able to wait till I
get home. You will have to take me to eat a biscuit somewhere. . . . All
the same, however, it's very exciting to see a man's life staked on a yes
or a no."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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