I,' he said, 'who am sentencing ces messieurs' (for this was the only allowable appellation, the word monsieur having been struck out of the language), 'since they are outlaws, and that in the present case the tribunal merely applies the penalty; I am well aware that it is my duty, and even my right, to urge on justice and to guide it; what I am doing to-day is in one respect less than what I was doing yesterday, for yesterday we gave judgments on our own responsibility, while to-day we are merely executing the decree of the National Convention; but yet――'I could not see when this 'but yet' was going to stop, and in what way Fouquier-Tinville would get rid of his hesitation; there was a danger of its increasing during the surrounding confusion. I saw that there was no time to be lost, and that it was necessary to instil courage into the head of the Revolutionary Tribunal. I am thus designating Fouquier-Tinville; I would have called him the soul of it, could one believe such monsters possessed a soul. 'Come now, citizen Fouquier,' I exclaimed in a loud but cold, imperious voice, 'the National Convention have commissioned me to see its orders carried out; I give you the one to proceed without further delay with the fulfilment of your mandate. This is the day to show oneself a patriot by sending the guilty ones forthwith to the scaffold awaiting them.' Fouquier did not require a second warning. He at once took his place
