Record that he has
laughed." Fouquier was at his wits' end. If the next day the jury were
asked if they had heard enough, and they answered, "No," there would be
an acquittal, and then Fouquier's own head would roll into the basket.
Probably there might even be insurrection. Fouquier wrote to the
Committee that they must obtain from the Convention a decree silencing
the defence. So grave was the crisis felt to be that the decree was
unanimously voted. When Fouquier heard that the decree was on its way,
he said, with a sigh of relief,--"Faith, we need it." But when it was
read, Danton sprung to his feet, raging, declaring that the public cried
out treason upon it. The President adjourned the court while the hall
resounded with the protests of the defendants and the shouts of the
police as they tore the condemned from the benches which they clutched
and dragged them through the corridors toward the prison. They emerged
no more until they mounted the carts which took them to the scaffold.
Nor was it safe to hesitate if one were attached to this court. Fouquier
had a clerk named Paris-Fabricius.
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