him the one little detail, that the burnt letters were found in the young girl's bedroom.
Up to the moment when the Public Prosecutor confronted him with it, he had been under the impression that she had destroyed the papers and the letter-case in the study, where she had remained alone after Merlin and his men had left the room. She could easily have burnt them there, as a tiny spirit lamp was always kept alight on a side table for the use of smokers.
This little fact now altered the entire course of events. Tinville had but to frame an indignant ejaculation:
"Citizens of France, see how you are being befooled and hoodwinked!"
Then he turned once more to Déroulède.
"Citizen Déroulède" he began.
But in the tumult that ensued he could no longer hear his own voice. The pent-up rage of the entire mob of Paris seemed to find vent for itself in the howls with which the crowd now tried to drown the rest of the proceedings.
As their brutish hearts had been suddenly melted on behalf of Juliette, in response to Déroulède's passionate appeal, so now they swiftly changed their sympathetic attitude to one of horror and execration.
Two people had fooled and deceived them. One of these they had reverenced and trusted, as much as their degraded minds were capable
