“Pardon me, sir; but previous to the examination of this respectable witness, I would ask under what name he is to figure in this process? Is he here the Abbé d'Ervan, the agreeable and gifted frequenter of the Faubourg St. Germain?--is he the Chevalier Maupret, the companion and associate of the house of Bourbon?--or is he the no less celebrated and esteemed citizen Mehé e de la Touche, whose active exertions have been of such value in these eventful times that we should think no recompense sufficient for them had he not been paid by both parties? Yes, sir,” continued he, in an altered tone, “I repeat it: we are prepared to show that this man is unworthy of all credit; that he whose testimony the court now calls is a hired spy and bribed calumniator,--the instigator to the treason he prosecutes, the designer of the schemes for which other men's blood has paid the penalty. Is this abbé without, and gendarme within, to be at large in the world, ensnaring the unsuspecting youth of France by subtle and insidious doctrines disguised under the semblance of after-dinner gayety? Are we to feel that on such evidence as this, the fame, the honor, the life of every man is to rest?--he, who earns his livelihood by treason, and whose wealth is gathered in the bloody sawdust beneath the guillotine!” “We shall not hear these observations longer,” said the President, with an accent of severity. “You may comment on the evidence of the witness hereafter, and, if you are able to do so, disprove it. His character is under the protection of the court.” “No, sir!” said the advocate, with energy; “no court, however high,--no tribunal, beneath that of Heaven itself, whose decrees we dare not question,--can throw a shield over a man like this. There are crimes which stain the nation they occur in; which, happening in our age, make men sorry for their generation, and wish they had lived in other times.” “Once more, sir, I command you to desist!” interrupted the President. “If I dare to dictate to the honorable court?” said the so-called Abbé, in an accent of the most honeyed sweetness, and with a smile of the most winning expression, “I would ask permission for the learned gentleman to proceed. These well-arranged paragraphs, this indignation got by heart, must have vent, since they 're paid for; and it would save the tribunal the time which must be consumed in listening to them hereafter.”