In front of the President, on a bench lower than his, sits Citizen Foucquier-Tinville, rested and refreshed, ready to take up his occupation, for as many hours as his country demands it of him.
On every desk a tallow candle, smoking and spluttering, throws a weird light, and more weird shadows, on the faces of clerks and President, on blank walls and ominous devices.
In the centre of the room a platform surrounded by an iron railing is ready for the accused. Just in front of it, from the tall, raftered ceiling above, there hangs a small brass lamp, with a green abat-jour.
Each side of the long, whitewashed walls there are three rows of benches, beautiful old carved oak pews, snatched from Nôtre Dame and from the Churches of St Eustache and St Germain l'Auxerrois. Instead of the pious worshippers of mediæval times, they now accommodate the lookers-on of the grim spectacle of unfortunates, in their brief halt before the scaffold.
The front row of these benches is reserved for those citizen-deputies who desire to be present at the debates of the Tribunal Révolutionnaire. It is their privilege, almost their duty, as representatives of the people, to see that the sittings are properly conducted.
These benches are already well filled. At one
