For ten months they thus remain under the knife, in daily
expectation of joining the twenty-two on the Place de la R?volution.
-- 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 Vend?e 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 H?bert,
"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.
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