Disclaimer: The characters of Le Chevalier D'Eon do not belong to me. Appearances by original characters and tweaking of historical facts.

Robin's going on trial soon...

Chapter 53 – A Court of Law

Camile opened his mouth to alert his fellow revolutionaries to the presence of a pair of nobles in their midst. Sir William leaned forward and dealt Camile a rap on the skull with the knob of his cane which stunned him.

"Hear, hear!" the Englishman clapped his hands, eliciting a raucous applause from the floor. Panting heavily from his passionate speech, Milien managed a bow before the coffeehouse owner shouted a warning. The secret police were closing in. Immediately, members of the audience made their discreet exits. Madame Roland and her maidservant darted out through the kitchens. Milien seized Camile and manhandled him out through a side exit with his two cronies in tow. Lorenza muttered a poem to buy them more time to escape. In the alley outside, a pack of poem-possessed dogs attacked the unwitting secret policemen.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust… the word of Man is nought before the Word of the Lord…" Sir William placed his hand onto his newspaper. As one, all the newspaper copies flared and burst into ashes, removing all evidence of the seditious tracts. The carpenter and fishwife had disappeared, but the Tussads remained at their seats nonchalantly. Sir William waved a serving woman over and ordered a tankard of ale and a mince pie. "Dinner, gentlemen?"

The coffeehouse took on an air of genteel ease as the shadier characters made their getaway through the side door. Rochefort laughed dryly and asked for wine and a meat pie. Robbie chirped in with a request for a bowl of stew and bread for himself and his master.

A knot of dishevelled policemen burst into the coffeehouse, apparently startling the patrons. The customers, mostly middle-class merchants and scholars, looked up from their interrupted meals. The sergeant bustled. It appeared to have been nothing but a wild goose chase. There was no sign of any revolutionary. The sergeant vented his venom on the hapless doorman. "Get up you cur!" He seized the poor doorman, who happened to be a cripple, by his collar. "Did any suspicious persons pass this way?"

"N-no, sir…" the poor man stammered. "Really? Are we to believe that, boys?" the sergeant hit the man in the face then drew his sword.

D'Eon had quite enough. He got to his feet. "The man speaks the truth, sergeant. There's no need for this…" Indeed, all the revolutionaries and their followers had either fled through the kitchen or side door or were still at their tables. "D'Eon…" Sir Rochefort plucked at D'Eon's sleeve but the younger man shrugged him off. Robbie swaggered over to his master's side. The doorman scurried away like a kicked dog.

"Ah, the royal stable master… one would not expect a man of your standing to be in such company," the sergeant sneered. "How does that filly of yours…" D'Eon clenched his fists and readied to throw a punch at the man's sneering face.

"What company my master chooses to keep is no business of yours," Robbie fingered the dagger in his belt.

"De Beaumont, enough. Such talk is spoiling our dinner," Rochefort called out. "Sergeant, the company here is genteel. In fact, the duke himself favours this establishment… we were about to start a discussion on the latest play at the theatre. Would you care to join us?" the old knight said absently. The sergeant grumbled under his breath and motioned for his men to leave.

"A pack of surly curs, if I do say so," Sir William smiled and said in English. "Sir D'Eon, I would like you to read through my first French draft of the Bard's play Romeo and Juliet…" he took out a stack of papers from his coat. D'Eon hesitated. It would be too easy for a poet like Sir William to slip in a poem among the papers. "Relax, mon ami. There is no poem inside," the Englishman placed the play on the table.

Rochefort leaned close to D'Eon as the younger man pored over the papers. "D'Eon. There's de Mercy… I don't know how long he was been here…" the white-haired knight nodded towards a sullen man. The ambassador was dressed as a nondescript clerk or valet. The man paid for his meal and strode towards the door. "Long enough to listen to our little Maximilien make his speech," William added tersely. When Robbie shot him a questioning look and fingered his dagger, William shook his head. It would not do for the Austrian ambassador to die so soon after parting ways with them.

The ambassador's departure did not go unnoticed. "Your Excellency! Do remember to pick up the medicine for your little problem," Francois called out drunkenly. "I guarantee your wife will be so much merrier if you get that problem fixed before going home to Austria." The man's innocuous remarks brought forth roars of laughter from the house.


The day of the trial was bright and sunny despite it being autumn. The courtroom was stiflingly hot. Sir Rochefort and D'Eon took their seats. Maximilien. D'Eon noticed his nephew taking his seat at the far end of their bench. Dr Roland was also on the jury. D'Eon wondered how he and Rochefort had agreed to sit on the bench. William had said it was a leste majeste trial. "Of course it means nothing to an Englishman like me," the poet laughed.

"All rise…" the marshal called out. The judge strode in, a vulture-like man with hooded eyes and a sharp nose. The defendant was marched in between two guards.

"Robin…" D'Eon caught himself just in time. Hands manacled and sporting a black eye, the redhead shambled up to the dock.

"We could just use those poems and free him…" Cagliostro complained to Lorenza. "Hush, the boy has a point," the woman pointed out. "We can't have a disturbance in the courthouse and if we spring him out, he'd be on the run for the rest of his life…" the pair watched from the public gallery as their master's trial started. Robespierre had come a long way from the former page to a lawyer of some standing in Paris. He was not going to end up like a hunted fox. Milien had been certain on that. He wanted to have his master acquitted of all charges.

The Bastille was as tough a prison as they had in Paris and escape from there was near impossible. Robespierre had been imprisoned there after his outburst.

The trial was tedious. The defendant was both evasive and defiant when question, which did not sit well with judge or jurors. Robin, why don't you help yourself by apologizing over calling Louis XV a murderer… D'Eob groaned silently. Never mind if it's true…

"It is clear he is either a rebel or a madman to smear the name of our late king, Louis XV the Beloved…" the prosecutor said as he turned to the jury after making his final address to the court.

"I say hang him, hang him high!" a weasel-faced clerk cried out. "No, that is too harsh a punishment for a mere slip of the tongue," Dr Roland wheezed. The old man looked awfully pale. "Hanging is too easy, have him burnt alive!" another man shouted. "A burning's always good for my business… Firewood anyone?" his joke earned guffaws from his fellows.

"Gentlemen of the jury, please! We need a decision from you," the judge stressed. "A unanimous one…"

"I propose that he is a lunatic who should be locked up safely in an asylum," someone shouted. "Order! Order in court!" the marshal rapped his mace on his table. "The gentlemen of the jury will be sequestered until they reach a decision."


"Are you for freeing him?" Sir Rochefort asked. D'Eon shook his head. It was too dangerous. Maximilien and Robin were a pair of firebrands. If Robin were safely confined in a cell, would he or Natalia be able to guide Maximilien to serve the royal court? "He was once a comrade of yours… Those people want him dead…" the elderly knight warned. "They will challenge any attempt to have him acquitted."

Dr Roland and Milien stood apart from the main core of jurors, just as the French knights stood apart. The remaining jurors were clearly associates and were jesting over how the mighty Master Robespierre would fare on the gallows. Some of their suggestions were enough to make him shudder.

"I bet he would pee in his pants and faint like a little girl."

"He's so skinny that we'd have to tie weights to his feet to make sure he hangs… Nay, let's just behead him…"

"Guys, I don't like the idea of sending him to the gallows for something many of us do, cursing the king and all his like… how about we send him into exile on a sugar plantation in the Indies? That should help with the labour shortage there," a tailor said.

"Surely you jest. He'll make a poor slave. He'll be dead before a week. Even the lions would turn their noses up at his scrawny carcass." Someone had sneaked in a bottle of wine and it was making the rounds.

"He was an advisor to the Duke of Orleans… do you suppose there's truth to his allegations? I mean, it was a shock back then when Good Queen Marie and her lady-in-waiting were murdered in the palace… That case remains unsolved…" an elderly law clerk said. "Perhaps our noble friends will be able to shed some light on that?" he turned to the knights. "I recall the girl's name was Rochefort… was she a relative, Sir Rochefort?"

"Monsieur Mallard, you talk too much," Milien called out. "I say we acquit the defendant of all…" he ducked as the now empty bottle arced across the room and smashed into the wall behind him." You're just saying that because you are his toy-boy!" someone shouted an off-colour insult. Enraged, Milien reached for his dagger.

"No," D'Eon was beside him in a flash. "Don't…" he grabbed the exposed blade in his hand.

"Sir D'Eon?" Milien looked uncertainly at his uncle's pleading eyes and then at the blood running down his dagger hilt from D'Eon's sliced palm. "Better let Dr Roland have a look at that…" Milien said and reluctantly surrendered his weapon to the knight.

"Gentlemen… this is most unseemly…" Dr Roland bleated in alarm. The alcohol and unseasonal heat was affecting all the jurors. Tempers were beginning to flare. The words were barely out of his mouth when he was punched in the mouth. "Stuff it, you old coot!"

D'Eon caught Dr Roland lest he fell. The man spat out blood and a tooth. Two other jurors were locked in a scuffle over some obscure quarrel. The old clerk had given up all pretence of interest and was dozing in his chair. Sir Rochefort gently prodded the clerk and received no response. The elderly knight watched the disintegrating proceedings wearily before reaching into his frock coat and pulling out a…

"Enough! All of you!" A gunshot rang out. Everyone froze. Wood chips and plaster rained down from the ceiling. "Sir Rochefort… when did you get that pistol?" D'Eon asked. He never thought Sir Rochefort would bring a firearm into the courthouse. "Since I received a letter to sit on the bench for this case. Now, gentlemen, we are not savages and we will not forget ourselves to act as such on the people's court…" the elderly knight addressed his fellow jurors.

"Now I have everyone's attention, let's get down to the business at hand so that we may get back home in time for dinner with our families," Sir Rochefort started. "Perhaps the Monsieur Fritz Milien would like to voice his suggestions?" MIlien accepted the invitation to speak and put forward a passionate case for his master to be released without further ado. If it weren't for the French knights' swords and Rochefort's pistol, he would have been set upon.

One by one, the other jurors took their turn to voice their opinions and put forward their case. It was late in the afternoon when an uneasy compromise was finally reached.


"Your Honour," D'Eon addressed the judge. He had been elected spokesman for the jury. "We, the bench, find Maximilien Robespierre guilty of a lesser charge of leste majeste," D'Eon had to force the words out between gritted teeth. "He has indeed insulted the memory of His late Majesty…" He avoided looking Robin in the eye. "With wilful words, but without malice. We propose that he be imprisoned," D'Eon paused to glance over to where Milien was scowling. Perhaps he should be thankful no poems had been used to influence the jury. "We propose that he be imprisoned for a year and a day from the time of his first being taken into custody."

Robin had apparently resigned himself to prison and was staring at his feet. He did not protest the jury's decision. Finishing his speech, D'Eon slumped back into his seat. He barely heard the judge pass sentence, but he was aware of a pair of blue-violet eyes glaring at him.

Author's Notes:

A brawl in the courthouse. Looks like Robin will be singing the jailhouse blues for a bit. At least it beats the hangman. But Milien is not going to be very forgiving towards his uncle.