Meanwhile, in a space of some five weeks, we have got to another emerging of the Trial, and a more practical one than ever.

On Tuesday, eleventh of December, the King’s Trial has emerged, very decidedly:  into the streets of Paris; in the shape of that green Carriage of Mayor Chambon, within which sits the King himself, with attendants, on his way to the Convention Hall!  Attended, in that green Carriage, by Mayors Chambon, Procureurs Chaumette; and outside of it by Commandants Santerre, with cannon, cavalry and double row of infantry; all Sections under arms, strong Patrols scouring all streets; so fares he, slowly through the dull drizzling weather:  and about two o’clock we behold him, ‘in walnut-coloured great-coat, redingote noisette,’ descending through the Place Vendome, towards that Salle de Manege; to be indicted, and judicially interrogated.  The mysterious Temple Circuit has given up its secret; which now, in this walnut-coloured coat, men behold with eyes.  The same bodily Louis who was once Louis the Desired, fares there:  hapless King, he is getting now towards port; his deplorable farings and voyagings draw to a close.  What duty remains to him henceforth, that of placidly enduring, he is fit to do.

The singular Procession fares on; in silence, says Prudhomme, or amid growlings of the Marseillese Hymn; in silence, ushers itself into the Hall of the Convention, Santerre holding Louis’s arm with his hand.  Louis looks round him, with composed air, to see what kind of Convention and Parliament it is.  Much changed indeed:—­since February gone two years, when our Constituent, then busy, spread fleur-de-lys velvet for us; and we came over to say a kind word here, and they all started up swearing Fidelity; and all France started up swearing, and made it a Feast of Pikes; which has ended in this!  Barrere, who once ‘wept’ looking up from his Editor’s-Desk, looks down now from his President’s-Chair, with a list of Fifty-seven Questions; and says, dry-eyed:  “Louis, you may sit down.”  Louis sits down:  it is the very seat, they say, same timber and stuffing, from which he accepted the Constitution, amid dancing and illumination, autumn gone a year.  So much woodwork remains identical; so much else is not identical.  Louis sits and listens, with a composed look and mind.

Of the Fifty-seven Questions we shall not give so much as one.  They are questions captiously embracing all the main Documents seized on the Tenth of August, or found lately in the Iron Press; embracing all the main incidents of the Revolution History; and they ask, in substance, this:  Louis, who wert King, art thou not guilty to a certain extent, by act and written document, of trying to continue King?  Neither in the Answers is there much notable.  Mere quiet negations, for most part; an accused man standing on the simple basis of No:  I do not recognise that document; I did not do that act; or did it according to the law that then was.  Whereupon the Fifty-seven Questions, and Documents to the number of a Hundred and Sixty-two, being exhausted in this manner, Barrere finishes, after some three hours, with his:  “Louis, I invite you to withdraw.”