The harder the task seemed with was set before her, the more real it became to Juliette.  God, she firmly believed, had at last, after ten years, shown her the way to wreak vengeance upon her brother’s murderer.  He had brought her to this house, caused her to see and hear part of the conversation between Blakeney and Deroulede, and this at the moment of all others, when even the semblance of a conspiracy against the Republic would bring the one inevitable result in its train:  disgrace first, the hasty mock trial, the hall of justice, and the guillotine.

She tried not to hate Deroulede.  She wished to judge him coldly and impartially, or rather to indict him before the throne of God, and to punish him for the crime he had commited ten years ago.  Her personal feelings must remain out of the question.

Had Charlotte Corday considered her own sensibilities, when with her own hand she put and end to Marat?

Juliette remained on her knees for hours.  She heard Anne Mie come home, and Deroulede’s voice of welcome on the landing.  Thas was perhaps the most bitter moment of this awful soul conflict, for it brought to her mind the remembrance of those others who would suffer too, and who were innocent—­Madame Deroulede and poor, crippled Anne Mie.  They had done no wrong, and yet how heavily would they be punished!

And then the saner judgment, the human, material code of ethics gained for a while the upper hand.  Juliette would rise from her knees, dry her eyes, prepare quietly to go to bed, and to forget all about the awful, relentless Fate which dragged her to the fulfilment of its will, and then sink back, broken-hearted, murmuring impassioned prayers for forgiveness to her father, her brother, her God.

The soul was young and ardent, and it fought for abnegation, martyrdom, and stern duty; the body was childlike, and it fought for peace, contentment, and quiet reason.

The rational body was conquered by the passionate, powerful soul.

Blame not the child, for in herself she was innocent.  She was but another of the many victims of this cruel, mad, hysterical time, that spirit of relentless tyranny, forcing its doctrines upon the weak.

With the first break of dawn Juliette at last finally rose from her knees, bathed her burning eyes and head, tidied her hair and dress, then she sat down at the table, and began to write.

She was a transformed being now, no longer a child, essentially a woman—­a Joan of Arc with a mission, a Charlotte Corday going to martyrdom, a human, suffering, erring soul, committing a great crime for the sake of an idea.

She wrote out carefully and with a steady hand the denunciation of Citizen-Deputy Deroulede which has become an historical document, and is preserved in the chronicles of France.

You have all seen it at the Musee Carnavalet in its glass case, its yellow paper and faded ink revealing nothing of the soul conflict of which it was the culminating victory.  The cramped, somewhat schoolgirlish writing is the mute, pathetic witness of one of the saddest tragedies, that era of sorrow and crime has ever known: