Chapter XV: Act III

_The Cour d’Assises. Only two of the four sides of the hall are
visible. The footlights nearly correspond with a line drawn
diagonally across it. To the left and in front is the seat of the
Ministry of State. Further back, to the left, the Court._

_Facing the audience, successively, are seated counsel, above them
the defendants and, lastly, the gendarmes. In the middle, in front of
a table placed for exhibits in the case, the witness stand._

_To the right three or four benches for the accommodation of the
audience, but only a small part is visible. The jury, which is
unseen, is supposed to occupy the place of the prompter’s box._

_There are present the Advocate General, the President of the Court
and his assessors, counsel for the defence and his learned friends.
In the dock are Madame Thomas, Marie Gaubert, Tupin (Catherine’s
husband), Lucie, guarded by gendarmes. Among the public Madame
d’Amergueux, Brignac, the clerk._

_At the rise of the curtain Madame Thomas is standing in the dock._

PRESIDENT [_authoritatively, to counsel for the defence_] Maître Verdier, this is not the moment for you to address the Court. And I take this occasion to warn you: I tell you plainly I will use all the authority in my power to prevent you from attempting to set up a theory of justification, as I see you are about to do, for the crimes with which the defendants are charged.

COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE. You are mistaken, President. I have no intention of the sort. On the contrary, I declare publicly that in my eyes abortion is a crime because it destroys the existence of a creature virtually in being. To allow it would infallibly lead to allowing infanticide. But what I shall try to shew is that by not permitting affiliation, and by not respecting all motherhood, however it is caused, Society has lost the right to condemn a crime rendered excusable by the hypocrisy of its morals and the indifference of the law.

PRESIDENT. This is not the moment for your speech. The defendant Thomas: we shall now pass to the second part of your examination. [_He hunts in his notes, says a word or two in an undertone to the assessor on his right, then to Madame Thomas_] So you admit the abominable crimes with which you are charged?

MME. THOMAS. I must admit them, as you have the proofs.

PRESIDENT. And you feel no remorse for the lives of human beings you have destroyed from the sole motive of gain! The jury will appreciate your attitude.

COUNSEL. Except that you have spared them the trouble!

PRESIDENT. Maître Verdier, I cannot hear you now. [_To Madame Thomas_] You have crippled the work of nature, you have offended against the principle of life, and you never said to yourself that among the beings you stifled before their birth might be one destined to benefit humanity by his greatness. Did you? Well?

MME. THOMAS. No.

PRESIDENT. You did not say so. Very well.

MME. THOMAS. If I had thought about that, I should have perhaps said that there was as much chance—more, perhaps—that he might be a thief or a murderer.

PRESIDENT. Indeed! I will not argue with you; I am not going to give you the chance to expound your criminal ideas here.

MME. THOMAS. My counsel will do it better than me.

PRESIDENT. We’ll see about that.

COUNSEL [_with a smile_] It might, perhaps, be well for you, President, not to contemn in advance the rights of the defence.

PRESIDENT [_irritated_] Maître Verdier, you have no right to address me! And you will be good enough to moderate your expressions. I regret to say that from the opening of this case you have adopted an attitude that you can, perhaps, carry off at Paris, but that I shall certainly not countenance here. Pray take notice of that.

COUNSEL. At the Paris bar—

PRESIDENT. I cannot hear you now.

COUNSEL. At the Paris—

PRESIDENT. I cannot hear you now! Kindly be seated.

MME. D’AMERGUEUX [_among the public, to her neighbor, M. de Forgeau_] What an excellent judge M. Calvon is. He is to dine with us tomorrow: I shall congratulate him.

M. DE FORGEAU. A judge of the old stamp.

MME. D’AMERGUEUX. He recognizes us. Did you see him give a little nod? [_She directs her smiles at the President_].

M. DE FORGEAU. Yes. Hush.

PRESIDENT. Marie Gaubert, stand up. [_A thin little woman rises to her feet_]. Your name is Marie Gaubert. How old are you?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. Twenty-seven.

PRESIDENT. Profession?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. Schoolmistress.

PRESIDENT. Do you admit the facts with which you are charged?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. Yes.

PRESIDENT. What have you to say in your defence?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. I didn’t think I was doing wrong.

PRESIDENT. Your levity astounds me. You are a schoolmistress, and you do not understand that the sacred mission entrusted to you of preparing men and women for the glory and responsibility of the future entails on you the duty of giving an example yourself! It is your business to conduct the course of elementary instruction in civic morality, and this is how you practise it! Have you nothing to answer? According to my notes you undertook the nursing of your two children yourself. Do you love them?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. It was just because I loved them.

PRESIDENT. But you decided that two were enough. You made up your mind to limit the work of the Almighty.

SCHOOLMISTRESS. I should have asked nothing better than to have four or five children.

PRESIDENT. Indeed! Then let me tell you that you did not take the best means to arrive at that result. [_He laughs and looks at his assessor on the right, then at Madame d’Amergueux. She signals her congratulations to him_].

SCHOOLMISTRESS. You have to be able to feed your children.

PRESIDENT. Ah, there! No! At a pinch I could understand that excuse—a very bad one—being employed in the case of other women; but not in yours, who enjoy the incomparable advantage of being protected by the State. You are never out of work.

SCHOOLMISTRESS. I earn eighty-three francs a month. My husband, who is a teacher, too, gets as much. That makes a hundred and sixty-six francs a month to live on and bring up two children. When there were four of us, we could almost do it; with five it would have been impossible.

PRESIDENT. You omit to say that during your confinement you have the right to a month’s leave with full salary.

SCHOOLMISTRESS. That used to be true, President. It is so no longer. A departmental circular of 1900 informed us that the funds were insufficient for more than half salaries to be paid, as a rule, at such times. To obtain the whole salary, a detailed report from the inspector is required, and you must petition for it.

PRESIDENT. Then why not petition?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. It’s hard to seem like a beggar simply because you have feelings.

PRESIDENT. Proud, are you?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. There’s no law against that.

PRESIDENT. So that is why you went to the defendant Thomas?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. Yes, sir. My husband and I arranged our little finances so: the evening our salaries were paid we used to divide the money into different parts and put them by; so much for rent, so much for food, so much for clothing. We just managed to get along by calculating carefully, and more than once having to cut down expenses that seemed inevitable. The prospect of a third child upset everything. It made our existence impossible. We should have all gone hungry. And then the inspectors and the head mistresses don’t like you to have many children, especially if you nurse them yourself. The last time I was nursing I was made to hide myself—I only had ten minutes during the break at ten o’clock and again at two; and when my mother brought the baby, I had to take him into a dark closet.

PRESIDENT. That has nothing to do with it.

COUNSEL. Yes, President, it has. It ought to be known how the State, which preaches the increase of the population, treats its servants when they have children.

PRESIDENT [_furiously_] I can’t hear you now! _[To the schoolmistress_] You haven’t anything more to say?

SCHOOLMISTRESS. No, sir.

PRESIDENT. Sit down.

MME. D’AMERGUEUX. I think M. Calvon lets their counsel talk too much.

M. DE FORGEAU. He’s rather afraid of him.

PRESIDENT. Tupin, stand up.

TUPIN [_a man of mean and wretched appearance_] After you, Calvon.

PRESIDENT. What’s that?

TUPIN. I said, ‘After you, Calvon.’ That’s your name, isn’t it?

PRESIDENT. I warn you I shall not stand the least insolence from you.

TUPIN. I said, ‘After you, Calvon,’ just as you said, ’Stand up Tupin.’ If that’s insolence, I didn’t begin it.

PRESIDENT. I will have you removed. Stand up.

TUPIN. All right. It’ll let me stretch my legs a bit.

PRESIDENT. Your profession?

TUPIN. Electrician.

PRESIDENT. You were once. It’s a long time since you worked regularly.

TUPIN. There’s no work to be had.

PRESIDENT. Because you look for it at the wineshop. The police give the worst account of you.

TUPIN. I am not surprised they don’t like me: I never liked them. [_Laughter_].

PRESIDENT. Silence there: or I shall have the court cleared. [_To Tupin_] The name of your wife has been found among the papers of the defendant Thomas. Catherine Tupin, maiden name Bidois. Where is Catherine Tupin? Stand up. Very well, sit down again. [_To Tupin_] You tried to conceal your wife from the police.

TUPIN. I didn’t think they were good company for her.

PRESIDENT [_pretending not to hear_] You then gave yourself up on your own confession that it was you who took her to this abominable woman’s house.

TUPIN. You speak like a book.

PRESIDENT. You persisted in the confession of your guilt. Did you want to go to prison?

TUPIN. Why, that’s an idea! You get fed and sheltered there anyway.

PRESIDENT. The prison conditions are certainly better than those you are accustomed to.

TUPIN. Now you’re talking.

PRESIDENT. When you were arrested you were completely destitute. The remains of your furniture had been sold, and you were on the eve of finding yourself without a roof over your head. Doubtless you will blame Society, too. Your insubordinate character leads you to frequent Socialist clubs; and when you do not affect, as you do now, a cynical carelessness in your speech, you are used to repeat the empty phrases you have learnt from the propagandist pamphlets that poison the minds of the working classes. But we know you. If you are a victim, it is to your own vices. You are a hardened drinker.

TUPIN. Lately, that’s true.

PRESIDENT. You admit it. Extraordinary!

TUPIN. What’s that prove?

PRESIDENT. Your eldest daughter is known to the police of Paris as a prostitute. One of your sons has been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for theft. Is that true?

TUPIN. Possibly.

PRESIDENT. A little less proud now? That’s right. Well, now, you took your wife to this woman. Why?

TUPIN. Because I thought it was enough to have brought seven wretched creatures into the world.

PRESIDENT. If you had continued to be the honest and industrious workman you were once, you might have had another child without its necessarily growing up wretched.

TUPIN. No, sir. Not with five. It’s impossible.

PRESIDENT. I don’t understand.

TUPIN. I say that a working man’s family, however much they work and economize, can’t support itself when there are five children.

PRESIDENT. If that is true, there are—and it is to the credit of the Society that you despise—there are, I say, numerous charitable organizations which are, so to speak, on the watch for the victims of misfortune and make it a point of honor to leave none without succor.

TUPIN [_excitedly_] Oh, and that seems all right to you, that a working man, who hasn’t any vice and does his duty, which is to work and—we’re told, too—have plenty of children, it seems all right to you that that should simply lead to beggary.

PRESIDENT. Yes, yes; I recognize the wineshop orator. So you say that a household can’t exist with five children. Thank God, there is more than one in that condition which goes neither to ask for charity nor to an abortionist.

MME. TUPIN. You’re wrong.

TUPIN. Shall I prove that you’re wrong?

PRESIDENT. That doesn’t seem to me to have much to do with the case.

MME. TUPIN. Yes, it has.

TUPIN. Pardon me. If I prove it, people will understand how I came to do what I did.

PRESIDENT. Very well. But be short.

TUPIN. I’ve given my counsel my accounts for a month. Let him read it to you.

PRESIDENT. Very well. [_The counsel rises_].

COUNSEL. Here it is.

PRESIDENT. You are not Tupin’s counsel.

COUNSEL. No, President, but my learned friends have done me the honor—for which I thank them—to confide to me the task of dealing in my speech with the case as a whole, reserving to themselves to deal with particular aspects of it as they relate to their clients.

PRESIDENT. I will hear you now solely for the purpose of reading these accounts. But this is not the time for you to address the court. You understand: I will hear the accounts and nothing more?

COUNSEL. Certainly, President. [_He reads_] The daily nourishment of five children consists of a four-pound loaf, soup of vegetables and dripping, and a stew which costs ninety centimes. Total, 3f. 75c. This is the expenditure of the father: Return ticket for tram, 30c. Tobacco, 15c. Dinner, 1f. 25c. The rent is 300f. Clothing for the whole family, and boots: sixteen pairs of boots for the children at 4f. 50c. each, four for the parents at 8f.: total again, 300f. Total for the year: 2,600f. The expenditure then must be set down at 2,600f. Tupin, who is an exceptional workman, earned 160f. a month, that is to say, 2,100f. a year. There is therefore an annual deficit of 500f. As I have promised, I will not add a word. [_He sits down_].

MME. D’AMERGUEUX [_to her husband_] He might well have saved the three sous a day for tobacco.

COUNSEL. Does the Court wish to have this paper put in?

PRESIDENT. There is no object in that. [_To Tupin_] I will not quarrel with your figures: I accept them. But I repeat: there are charitable institutions.

TUPIN. And I repeat that I don’t want to beg.

PRESIDENT. You prefer to commit what is almost infanticide? A man whose daughter is on the streets and whose son is a thief can accept charity without degradation.

TUPIN [_excited_] They weren’t then. If they’ve fallen to that, it’s because with so many other children besides, I couldn’t look after my son as rich people look after theirs, and because my daughter was seduced and abandoned—because she was hungry! No, but you must have a heart of stone to bring that up against me!

PRESIDENT. And it’s not your fault either that you’ve become a drunkard?

TUPIN. I’ll tell you. You know the proverb: ‘When there’s no hay in the manger—.’ Well, when the pinch came at home, I and my wife began to quarrel over each new baby. Each of us accused the other of having made things worse for the first ones. Well, I’ll cut it short. If I went to the wineshop, why, it’s warm there, and you don’t hear the brats crying and their mother complaining. And the drink helps you to forget, so it does, to forget!

MME. TUPIN. It’s good to forget, so it is!

TUPIN. It’s my fault if you like, but that’s how we got poorer and poorer.

PRESIDENT. And when you had your last child, didn’t that serve as a lesson to you?

TUPIN. The last one didn’t cost anything.

PRESIDENT [_absently_] Ah!

TUPIN. He came into the world deformed and sickly. He was conceived in misery, in want—his mother was worn out.

PRESIDENT. And his father a drunkard!

TUPIN. If you like. Well, he came badly into the world—he could never have been anything but a cripple. But he didn’t want for anything! They took him in at the hospital and begged me to let him stay there.

MME. TUPIN. He was a curiosity for the doctors.

TUPIN. They looked after him, I tell you. They didn’t leave him for a minute. He was made to live in spite of himself, so to speak. The other children, who were strong, they let them perish of want. With half the care and the money that was spent on the sickly one they might have made fine fellows of all the rest.

PRESIDENT. Then that is why you made away with the next?

TUPIN. For all the good he’d have had in the world, if he could, he’d say, thank you.

PRESIDENT. You ought not to have had him.

TUPIN. That’s true. But we poor folk, we don’t know the dodges rich people have so as only to have the children they want, and take their fun all the same: worse luck!

PRESIDENT. If everyone was of your opinion our country would be in a bad way. But your country, doubtless, is nothing to you?

TUPIN. I’ve heard say: ‘A man’s country is where he is well off.’ I’m badly off everywhere.

PRESIDENT. And you are equally lost to any interest in humanity.

TUPIN. If humanity can’t get on without a set of wretches like me, let it go smash!

PRESIDENT. Well, the jury can estimate your sense of morality. You may sit down.

_Night has come. The ushers bring lamps._

MME. D’AMERGUEUX. I shouldn’t like to meet that man of an evening in a lonely place.

M. DE FORGEAU. Nor I. Now for Madame Brignac—that was. My dear lady, what a dreadful thing!

MME. D’AMERGUEUX. Dreadful!

PRESIDENT. We have now only to examine the facts concerning Lucie and Annette Jarras. [_To the defendant Thomas_] Stand up. This girl, Annette Jarras, was your victim. What have you to say?

MME. THOMAS. Nothing.

PRESIDENT. You don’t trouble yourself about it? Well, we know your heart is not easy to move.

MME. THOMAS. If I told you that I was led to do what I did by pity, you wouldn’t believe me.

PRESIDENT. Probably not. But you can try to make us believe. The defendant has the right to say whatever he thinks fit—always under the control of the court, of course.

MME. THOMAS. It’s not worth while.

PRESIDENT. Yes, yes; go on. The jury is listening to you.

MME. THOMAS [_on a sign from her counsel_] A girl came to me one day. She was a servant. Her master had had her. I refused to do what she asked me: she went away and threw herself into the water. Another, whom I wouldn’t help, was tried here for infanticide. So, since then, when others have come to me, I have agreed; I have prevented more than one suicide and more than one crime.

PRESIDENT. So it was from pity, out of charity that you acted. The prosecution will reply that you never forgot to exact heavy payment.

MME. THOMAS. And you, aren’t you paid for condemning others?

PRESIDENT. Those whom you condemned to death and executed yourself, were innocent.

MME. THOMAS. You prosecute me; but the surgeons who guarantee sterility get decorated!

PRESIDENT. You forget this young girl who died as the result of your action, Annette Jarras. She was eighteen, in the full enjoyment of health; now she is in the grave. [_Lucie breaks into sobs_] Look at her sister by your side; listen to her crying. Ask her now if she does not curse you.

MME. THOMAS. She would bless me if I had succeeded.

PRESIDENT [_to Lucie_] Defendant Lucie Jarras, stand up.

M. DE FORGEAU [_to his neighbor_] Brignac must think himself lucky to have got his divorce.

MME. D’AMERGUEUX. Speak lower; he’s behind us. I am against divorce, but in this case—

PRESIDENT. You have heard the defendant Thomas. What have you to say?

LUCIE [_through her sobs_] Nothing. Nothing. [_She sinks back upon her bench_].

PRESIDENT. Do you admit—?

LUCIE. Yes, yes; I admit everything. I’ve told you so already.

PRESIDENT. You did not want your child to come into the world?

LUCIE. I didn’t want it to.

PRESIDENT. Why?

LUCIE. Out of pity for him. I knew what sort of a life he would have, and I risked my own to save him from it. I acted like a good mother.

PRESIDENT. What you say is simply monstrous. [_Silence_]. You, now, have not the excuse of poverty. Your child would not have suffered from want.

LUCIE. He would have suffered from disease, and that is as bad as want.

PRESIDENT. No theories, please. Only facts.

LUCIE. Yes; facts, nothing but facts. You can see the theory of it for yourself. I had two children, two little girls. One is a deaf mute, the other had convulsions. She is dead now. The doctors told me that that was due to the alcoholized condition of my husband, whose father had been in the same state.

PRESIDENT. Most unfortunate.

LUCIE. Be pleased to let me speak!

PRESIDENT. Very good. I will answer you.

LUCIE. One of the doctors is famous—Dr. Hourtin.

PRESIDENT. A specialist who sees alcoholism everywhere!

LUCIE [_more vigorously_] Those doctors told me that if my husband did not change his mode of life, any further children I had by him would, perhaps, be worse than the first, nervous degenerates. The very evening that Professor Hourtin came to see me, my husband came back from some festivity in a state of excitement—[_She stops_].

PRESIDENT. Well? Is that all?

LUCIE. No; I’ll have the courage to say everything. I have nothing to lose now.

PRESIDENT. Please take note that it is not I who make you go on.

LUCIE. No; you would probably prefer if I didn’t. [_Controlling her voice_] During the day something had happened—something serious—that revealed to me all the hideousness of his moral character. I determined no longer to be his wife. He came in, gay with drinking. In spite of my prayers and resistance, my cries of hatred and disgust, he chose that evening to exercise his rights—his rights! He took me by force; he outraged me.

PRESIDENT. He was your husband?

LUCIE. Yes.

PRESIDENT. Then—

LUCIE. Of course. The next morning I left his house.

PRESIDENT [_starting_] M. Brignac is not in question.

LUCIE. I bring him in question!

PRESIDENT. I shall not allow you to bring charges against persons unconnected with the case.

LUCIE. He ought to be in my place.

PRESIDENT. His name does not figure in the indictment.

LUCIE. Because your justice doesn’t want to put responsibility on the right shoulders!

PRESIDENT. I forbid you to speak like that of M. Brignac.

COUNSEL. Pardon me, President.

PRESIDENT. I cannot hear you now.

COUNSEL. That is why I ask to be heard.

PRESIDENT. What do you want?

COUNSEL. M. Brignac is called as a witness.

PRESIDENT. We have already heard him.

COUNSEL. Allow me to remind you of the terms of Article 319 of the Criminal Code, which authorizes me to say against him as well as against his evidence whatever may help the defence.

PRESIDENT. And let me remind you of Article 311 in the same Code, which enjoins you to express yourself with moderation.

COUNSEL. I ask you, President, kindly to recall M. Brignac to the bar. I have a question to put to him through you.

PRESIDENT [_after consulting with his assessors_] Usher, ask M. Brignac kindly to come here.

BRIGNAC [_coming forward to the bar_] Here, President.

PRESIDENT. What is your question, Maître Verdier?

COUNSEL. M. Brignac has heard all that has just been said?

BRIGNAC. Yes.

COUNSEL. Then I beg M. Brignac to review all the factors in his memory. I make a supreme appeal to his conscience, and I beg you, President, to put this question to M. Brignac: does M. Brignac not recognize himself as morally responsible for the crime imputed to Madame Lucie Jarras, his divorced wife?

PRESIDENT. I shall not put the question. Is that all?

COUNSEL. For the moment, yes.

PRESIDENT [_to Brignac_] You may return to your place, Deputy. But since the defence, with an assumption of excessive liberty, appears desirous of incriminating you, the Court may, perhaps, be permitted to express to you here the high esteem in which it personally holds you. [_He half rises from his chair, bowing to Brignac_].

BRIGNAC. I thank you, President. [_He goes back to his place_].

MME. D’AMERGUEUX [_to her neighbor_] Then it’s true what they say, that Brignac is to be Minister of Justice in the next Government?

PRESIDENT [_to Lucie_] Defendant Jarras, have you finished?

LUCIE. No, President.

PRESIDENT [_with a gesture of weariness_] Go on, then; I’m listening.

LUCIE. When I felt a child coming to life within me of a man who was nothing more to me, whose name even I no longer bore, and whom I hated with my whole soul, I prevented it from being born to a destiny of misery. I consider that I had the right to refuse the task of motherhood when it was forced on me against my will.

PRESIDENT. I shall not allow you to justify an act which is a crime by law.

LUCIE. I have nothing on my conscience to reproach myself with.

PRESIDENT. Then you have a singularly indulgent conscience. All this comes from your pride. If you had not entered into a struggle with your husband, you would still bear a respected name and you would not be there.

LUCIE. I knew that any child of his would be a degenerate. Had I not the right to refuse?

PRESIDENT. No.

LUCIE. I loved him no longer. Had I not the right to refuse?

PRESIDENT. No.

LUCIE. Well, then, have the courage to say that woman in the marriage of today is a slave whom man can reduce to be the instrument of his pleasure! Just as he likes he can leave her sterile or give her children—imperil her happiness, her life, or her health, and pledge her whole future without having to render more account to her than a bull who is put to a cow! If that’s it, very well! But say so! At least, let innocent girls know the shameful bargain that men offer them, with love for a bait and the law for a trap!

PRESIDENT [_coldly_] You were the cause of your young sister’s death. You took her with you.

LUCIE [_calmer_] Yes. [_She stops_].

PRESIDENT. Well?

LUCIE. Our money was soon spent. Annette got some music lessons to give, but they sent her away when they found out her condition. I did sewing.

PRESIDENT. Then you earned some money.

LUCIE. I could not get work every day. When I did, I earned fifteen sous for twelve hours. It’s true I was not clever; there are women who earn one franc twenty-five-. We were seized by despair at the thought of the child that was coming.

PRESIDENT. That was not a reason to take your sister and her child to their deaths. [_Lucie is seized by a nervous shudder and does not answer_] Answer me.

COUNSEL. Let her take a minute, President.

LUCIE [_pulling herself together_] I wanted to get her into a hospital, but they only take you in at the end of pregnancy. At Paris there are institutions, it seems, but not in the provinces.

PRESIDENT. You might have asked for relief.

LUCIE. We had not been the requisite six months in the town. And afterwards, what could we have done with the child?

PRESIDENT. If she was unable to bring it up, your sister could have taken it to the ‘Enfants Assistés.’

LUCIE. Yes, abandoned it. We did think of that. We made inquiries.

COUNSEL. A certificate is required that the applicant to the society is without means. An inquiry is made and the application may be accepted or refused. In the meantime the child may die.

LUCIE. They only take in children on condition that the mother shall not know where the child is, that she shall never see it or have news of it. Once a month only she is told if it is alive or dead; nothing more.

PRESIDENT. Go on, madam. But facts, if you please.

LUCIE. Yes. I begged my husband to take Annette and me back. He would not.

PRESIDENT. Kindly come to the defendant Thomas.

LUCIE [_with constantly rising emotion_] Annette reproached herself for having accepted what she called my sacrifice. She said that she was the cause of all my trouble. [_Pause_] One day I was fetched; I found her dead at this woman’s. [_A fit of sobbing seizes her: her nerves break down completely. She cries_] My little sister! my poor little sister!

PRESIDENT [_Compassionately, to the usher_] Take her away. Call the doctor. [_Lucie, still crying out, is led away. Her emotion has communicated itself to everyone in court. The President continues to the defendants_] Has no one else among you anything further to say in his defence?

TUPIN [_excited_] Oh, if we said everything we should be here till tomorrow!

MME. TUPIN [_equally excited_] Yes, till tomorrow, so we should!

TUPIN. And then we shouldn’t be done, I can tell you!

PRESIDENT. Then I will hear the Advocate-General.

SCHOOLMISTRESS. But you’re not going to condemn us? It isn’t possible. I haven’t said everything—

TUPIN. It’s not we who are guilty!

SCHOOLMISTRESS. I was afraid of getting a bad name. We hadn’t the means, either, to bring up another.

MME. TUPIN [_greatly worked up_] So that’s it! So that’s all the children that we bring up get by it! What’s the use of talking? The men haven’t thought of changing it—well then, we must do it! We women! We must strike! We—the mothers! The great strike—the strike of the mothers!

_Cries among the public, ‘Yes, yes.’_

PRESIDENT. Silence!

MME. TUPIN. What’s the good of using ourselves up to make more wretched men and gay women! For others to use!

TUPIN. It’s not we that are guilty!

PRESIDENT. Sit down!

TUPIN [_drowning his voice_] It’s the men who’ve not given us enough to feed our children that are guilty!

PRESIDENT. Sit down!

TUPIN. The men who tell us to have other children, while those we have are rotting with hunger!

COUNSEL. The criminal is the man who seduced little Annette!

PRESIDENT. Silence!

MME. THOMAS. Yes, where’s he? Where’s he? You haven’t taken him up! Because he’s a man and your laws—

PRESIDENT. Guards!

MME. THOMAS. And your laws are made by men!

PRESIDENT. Guards!

MME. THOMAS. And all the men who got with child the girls I delivered, did you prosecute them?

_During the following, an anger which becomes a fury seizes the
accused. They are all on their feet, except the schoolmistress, who
continues to sob and utter words that no one hears. The President
is also on his feet; he tries vainly to restore silence by knocking
on his desk with a paper-knife, but he cannot make himself heard.
The tumult increases till the fall of the curtain, the voices of
the counsel for the defence and his clients drowning those of the
President and the Procuror._

PRESIDENT. I will have you removed to prison!

MME.THOMAS. The fine gentlemen who take mistresses! And the young ones who humbug little work girls!

PRESIDENT. I’ll have you removed to prison.

PROCUROR. Guards, can’t you keep that crowd of fanatics quiet?

COUNSEL. You have no right to insult the defendants!

TUPIN. That’s all they’ve done from the beginning!

PROCUROR. Make that howling mob be quiet! The defendants have no respect for the Court!

COUNSEL. And you, Advocate General, have no respect for justice!

PROCUROR. If their crime inspires you with sympathy, it only fills me with indignation.

COUNSEL. They are right. They are not guilty! The respect that you lack—

PROCUROR. I demand—

COUNSEL. The guilt is at the door of the morals that brand the unmarried mother.

THE PUBLIC. Bravo!

PROCUROR. I ask that counsel for the defence—

COUNSEL. Every woman with child ought to be respected in whatever circumstances her child has come into being.

_Applause._

PRESIDENT. Maître Verdier, by virtue of Article 43 of the Rules—

COUNSEL. Their crime is not an individual, but a social, crime.

PROCUROR. It is a crime against nature!

COUNSEL. It is not a crime; it is a revolt against nature!

PRESIDENT. Guards, remove the defendants! [_The guards do not hear or do not understand_]. Maître Verdier, if I have to employ force—

_Tumult in court._

COUNSEL [_succeeding by the force of his voice in imposing a short silence_] It is a revolt against nature! A revolt that fills my heart with pity, at the cause of which all the force of my mind is roused to indignation! Yes; I look forward with eagerness to that hour of freedom when the store-house of science shall give to everyone the means, without a restraint that is only hypocrisy, without the profanation of love, to have none but the children he wants! That will be indeed a victory over nature, that cruel nature which sows with criminal profusion the life that she watches die with indifference. But meanwhile—

_The tumult begins again._

PRESIDENT. Guards, clear the court! Guards! Guards, remove the defendants. The sitting is adjourned.

_The judges put on their caps and rise._

MME. THOMAS. It’s not me who kills the innocents! I’m no murderess!

SCHOOLMISTRESS. Mercy! Mercy!

MME. TUPIN. She’s no murderess!

TUPIN. She’s right. She’s no murderess!

MME. THOMAS. It’s the men that are guilty! The men! All the men!

_The judges leave by the narrow door leading to their room. During
the last words their red robes are seen gradually disappearing._

PLAYS BY BRIEUX

MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY

MENAGES D’ARTISTES 3 Acts

BLANCHETTE 3 ”

LA COUVÉE 1 Act

L’ENGRENAGE 3 Acts

LES BIENFAITEURS 4 ”

L’ÉVASION 3 ”

LES TROIS FILLES DE M DUPONT 3 ”

LE RÉSULTAT DES COURSES 5 ”

LE BERCEAU 3 ”

LA ROBE ROUGE 4 ”

LES REMPLAÇANTES 3 ”

LA PETITE AMIE 3 ”

MATERNITÉ 3 ”

LES AVARIÉS 3 ”

LES HANNETONS 3 ”

LA FRANÇAISE 3 ”

SIMONE 3 ”

LA FOI 5 ”

SUZETTE 3 ”

LE BOURGEOIS SOCIALISTE 3 ”

RE-ISSUE OF THE WORKS OF THE LATE SAMUEL BUTLER

AUTHOR OF “EREWHON,” “THE WAY OF ALL FLESH,” ETC.

MR. FIFIELD has pleasure in announcing he has taken over the publication of the entire works of the late SAMUEL BUTLER, novelist, philosopher, scientist, satirist, and classicist; “in his own department,” says Mr. Bernard Shaw, “the greatest English writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century.” “The Way of All Flesh,” “Erewhon,” and “Unconscious Memory,” which had been out of print for some time, and are now reprinted, and these and all the other works with the exception of “The Fair Haven” and “Selections” (_out of print_), are now offered at more popular prices.

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH. A Novel. New Edition. 6s.

GOD THE KNOWN AND GOD THE UNKNOWN. 1s. 6d. nett.

EREWHON. 11th, Revised Edition. 4th Impression. 2s. 6d. nett.

EREWHON REVISITED. 3rd Impression, 340 pages. 2s. 6d. nett.

ESSAYS ON LIFE, ART, AND SCIENCE. 340 pages. 2s. 6d. nett.
(A few copies of the original edition, gilt top, 6s.)

THE ALPS AND SANCTUARIES OF PIEDMONT AND
THE CANTON TICINO. Profusely illustrated by
CHARLES GOGIN, H. F. Jones, and the Author. Pott 4to,
cloth gilt. 10s. 6d.

UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. New Edition. 5s. nett.

LIFE AND HABIT. An essay after a completer view of
Evolution. New Edition with Addenda. 5s. nett.

EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW. A comparison of the
theories of Buffon, Erasmus, Darwin, and Lamarck, with
that of Charles Darwin. 5s. nett.

LUCK, OR CUNNING, AS THE MAIN MEANS OF
ORGANIC MODIFICATION? 5s. nett.

THE AUTHORESS OF THE ODYSSEY, WHO AND
WHAT SHE WAS, WHEN AND WHERE SHE
WROTE, ETC. 5s. nett.

THE ILIAD OF HOMER, rendered into English Prose. 5s. nett.

THE ODYSSEY, rendered into English Prose. 5s. nett.

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS, with Notes and Original Text. 5s. nett.

EX VOTO. An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem
at Varallo-Sesia. 5s. nett.

THE FAIR HAVEN (_Out of print._)

SELECTIONS FROM BUTLER’S WORKS. (_Out of print._)

LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD, 13 CLIFFORD’S INN, E.C.

WORKS BY BERNARD SHAW

NOVELS OF MY NONAGE.

No. 2. THE IRRATIONAL KNOT (1880). Reprinted with a Preface in 1905.
6s.

No. 4. CASHEL BYRON’S PROFESSION (1882), with the dramatic version in
the Elizabethan style entitled THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE OR CONSTANCY
UNREWARDED, and a Note on Modern Prize-Fighting. 6s.

_Unauthorized reprints of other early novels can be obtained in America._

DRAMATIC WORKS.

PLAYS, PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT. 2 vols. With a Portrait of the Author
by FREDERICK H. EVANS, and the original Prefaces. 6s. each. Sold
separately.

Vol. I. UNPLEASANT, (1) Widowers’ Houses; (2) The Philanderer; (3)
Mrs. Warren’s Profession.

Vol. II. PLEASANT. (4) Arms and The Man; (5) Candida; (6) The Man of
Destiny; (7) You Never Can Tell.

THREE PLAYS FOR PURITANS, 1 vol. 6s.