Tinville reads, standing, with the other two at his side.] "The National Convention, after having heard the report of the Committee of Public Safety and Public Security, decrees that the Revolutionary Tribunal shall continue the examination into the conspiracy of Danton and his associates; that the Judge shall use every means accorded him by law to impose respect and to put a stop to every effort on the part of the prisoners to disturb the public dignity and interfere with the course of justice, and that every prisoner accused of conspiracy who shall resist or insult the national justice shall be immediately withdrawn from the trial." [The People and the others are astonished. All at once the People begin talking, then the prisoners, at first ill at ease, burst out.]
Camille. Infamous! They are gagging us!
Philippeaux. They are not judges, but butchers.
Danton [to Fouquier-Tinville]. You have not read it all. There is something else. The answer! The answer to our demand!
Judge. Silence!
Fouquier-Tinville. The Convention communicates the following letter, received by the Committees from the police department, which shall be read in order that the court may understand the perils besetting the cause of Liberty. [Reads:] "Commune of Paris. We, the administrators of the police department, having received a letter from the concierge of the Luxembourg prison, immediately went to the said prison, and brought before us Citizen Laflotte, former minister to the Republic of Florence, who has been confined there
