sleep on the floor for lack of room. Under the skylights, which serve
for windows, and at the foot of the staircase are two pig-pens; at the
end of the apartment are the privies, and in one corner a night-tub,
which completes the poisoning of the atmosphere already vitiated by
this crowded mass of human beings. The beds consist of sacks of straw
swarming with vermin; they are compelled to endure the
discipline,[107] rations and mess of convicts. And they are lucky to
escape at this rate: for Amar takes advantage of their silent
deportment to tax them with conspiracy; other Montagnards likewise
want to arraign them at the revolutionary Tribunal: at all events, it
is agreed that the Committee of General Security shall examine their
records and maintain the right of designating new culprits amongst
them. For ten months they thus remain under the knife, in daily
expectation of joining the twenty-two on the Place de la Révolution.
-- With respect to the latter, the object is not to try them but to
kill them, and the semblance of a trial is simply judicial
assassination; the bill of indictment against them consists of club
gossip; they are accused of having desired the restoration of the
monarchy, of being in correspondence with Pitt and Coburg;[108] of
having excited Vendée to insurrection. The betrayal of Dumouriez is
imputed to them, also the murder of Lepelletier, and the assassination
of Marat; while pretended witnesses, selected from amongst their
personal enemies, come and repeat, like a theme agreed upon, the same
ill-contrived fable: nothing but vague allegations and manifest
falsehoods, not one definite fact, not once convincing document; the
lack of proof is such that the trial has to be stopped as soon as
possible. "You brave b------ forming the court," writes Hébert,
"don't trifle away your time. Why so much ceremony in shortening the
days of wretches whom the people have already condemned?" Care is
especially taken not to let them have a chance to speak. The