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236 tears. A black outlook for the Jacobins, this! They suddenly declared witnesses and legal forms to be perfectly unnecessary; a deputation was sent to the Convention, and the latter, with much dispatch, empowered the jury to cut a trial short when they considered themselves sufficiently enlightened.

At ten o'clock on the night of the 30th of October the accused were summoned for the last time, to learn that the trial was at an end. Madame Roland had not been called. The Jury unanimously returned a verdict of guilty, and the sentence pronounced on the Twenty-one was—Death!

The condemned Girondins could not repress a thrill of indignation, a movement of wrath. It was not so difficult to die, but to die as traitors to the Republic! Valazé stabbed himself to the heart, and fell dead. Lasource, turning upon his judges, cried, "I die on the day when the People have lost their reason. You will die when they recover it! Brissot's arms fell nerveless to his side; his head sank forward; he was not thinking of his own fate, but of the wife, of the three young sons, whom his devotion to the public cause left utterly destitute. Fonfrède flung his arms round Ducos, that young martyr of friendship, who had scorned Marat's mercy, sobbing, "I have brought you to this!" Ducos answered quietly, "Be comforted, friend; do we not die together?" Vergniaud was for taking poison; but there was not enough for all, so he flung it from him, in contempt; he would not be divided from them in his death.

As they left the room where Valazé's corpse lay stretched on the table, one by one the condemned went up to him and kissed him on the forehead, saying, "Till to-morrow!" The prisoners in the Conciergerie,