LUCIE [_pulling herself together_] I wanted to get her into a hospital, but they only take you in at the end of pregnancy. At Paris there are institutions, it seems, but not in the provinces. PRESIDENT. You might have asked for relief. LUCIE. We had not been the requisite six months in the town. And afterwards, what could we have done with the child? PRESIDENT. If she was unable to bring it up, your sister could have taken it to the ‘Enfants Assistés.’ LUCIE. Yes, abandoned it. We did think of that. We made inquiries. COUNSEL. A certificate is required that the applicant to the society is without means. An inquiry is made and the application may be accepted or refused. In the meantime the child may die. LUCIE. They only take in children on condition that the mother shall not know where the child is, that she shall never see it or have news of it. Once a month only she is told if it is alive or dead; nothing more. PRESIDENT. Go on, madam. But facts, if you please. LUCIE. Yes. I begged my husband to take Annette and me back. He would not. PRESIDENT. Kindly come to the defendant Thomas. LUCIE [_with constantly rising emotion_] Annette reproached herself for having accepted what she called my sacrifice. She said that she was the cause of all my trouble. [_Pause_] One day I was fetched; I found her dead at this woman’s. [_A fit of sobbing seizes her: her nerves break down completely. She cries_] My little sister! my poor little sister! PRESIDENT [_Compassionately, to the usher_] Take her away. Call the doctor. [_Lucie, still crying out, is led away. Her emotion has communicated itself to everyone in court. The President continues to the defendants_] Has no one else among you anything further to say in his defence? TUPIN [_excited_] Oh, if we said everything we should be here till tomorrow! MME. TUPIN [_equally excited_] Yes, till tomorrow, so we should! TUPIN. And then we shouldn’t be done, I can tell you! PRESIDENT. Then I will hear the Advocate-General. SCHOOLMISTRESS. But you’re not going to condemn us? It isn’t possible. I haven’t said everything— TUPIN. It’s not we who are guilty! SCHOOLMISTRESS. I was afraid of getting a bad name. We hadn’t the means, either, to bring up another. MME. TUPIN [_greatly worked up_] So that’s it! So that’s all the children that we bring up get by it! What’s the use of talking? The men haven’t thought of changing it—well then, we must do it! We women! We must strike! We—the mothers! The great strike—the strike of the mothers! _Cries among the public, ‘Yes, yes.’_ PRESIDENT. Silence! MME. TUPIN. What’s the good of using ourselves up to make more wretched men and gay women! For others to use! TUPIN. It’s not we that are guilty! PRESIDENT. Sit down! TUPIN [_drowning his voice_] It’s the men who’ve not given us enough to feed our children that are guilty! PRESIDENT. Sit down! TUPIN. The men who tell us to have other children, while those we have are rotting with hunger!