The Following Day – Friday
The following day was a Friday.
André arrived at the Châtelet Criminal Court, striding confidently with the official inquiry letter issued by the Supreme Court in hand. At his side was Mérida, the housekeeper's nephew—a pimply-faced youth of just fifteen, serving eagerly as his assistant.
"Good day, Monsieur Franck. Welcome to the Châtelet Court," called a voice from the front steps. Morel, the judge's assistant, had been waiting in the entrance hall and now hurried down the stairs with an ingratiating smile, his tone dripping with feigned respect and politeness. The servile warmth he now exuded stood in comical contrast to the condescension and arrogance he had shown mere days before.
André halted his steps. As Morel reached out a hand in an attempt at reconciliation, the young lawyer merely looked at him with a blank face and shook his head. To André, Morel was nothing more than a cowardly and contemptible creature. Such men were beneath his consideration. Besides, one of his purposes here today was to make a statement—to establish authority inside the Châtelet.
A senior prosecutor from the Palais de Justice had recently passed along some discreet intelligence to André: the Châtelet High Criminal Court would be formally dissolved within the next three months. It was to be restructured into the Third Circuit Tribunal of Paris. While still a felony court in name, this new court's influence and jurisdiction would be severely diminished. Whereas the Châtelet had once presided over nearly a third of the nation's administrative legal power, it would soon be limited to the city's 48 districts and two adjacent provinces. Furthermore, the Supreme Court would assert clear administrative oversight over all circuit courts—a quiet reassertion of centralized judicial power.
In two years' time, under Danton's hand, this very tribunal would be reshaped yet again into the Revolutionary Tribunal, with the Palais de Justice itself reduced to a shell of its former authority.
(For context: circuit courts at this time handled not only serious criminal cases but also major civil and commercial matters.)
All of this was excellent news for André. It meant the old Châtelet Court's entrenched privileges—such as their practice of establishing de facto judicial precedents (yes, even in the continental civil law tradition)—would soon be stripped away and returned to central authority. Even if he offended every last judge and clerk in this building, André no longer feared retaliation. Their era was ending.
Morel, visibly paling under the slight, withdrew his hand awkwardly. He stood frozen on the steps, humiliated.
As First Assistant to Judge Faria, Morel had much to be proud of: a prestigious lineage in the legal profession, a Sorbonne law degree, and a glittering future. If all went as expected, he would soon become a magistrate himself by the age of forty. Yet now, only days ago, this promising figure had become the butt of every legal salon's gossip in Paris.
His colleagues scorned him for breaking the sacred rules of the judicial profession. Judge Faria, too, had been incensed, insisting that the damage be undone immediately—he had no intention of entering his tenure at the downgraded circuit court with this scandal hanging over him.
André had made a fool of him.
Morel seethed. He hadn't acted on his own. It was Judge Faria who had, in a hushed aside, encouraged him to block André from meeting his client. It was Faria who had accepted a sack of gold from the tax-farming syndicate.
But the thing that truly stoked Morel's fury was André himself: the unassuming provincial youth from Reims, who had pretended to be harmless—even pitiable—in his earlier visits. Morel had looked down on him as a chick for the plucking. And yet, it turned out this "quail" was a wolf in disguise—ruthless, cunning, and terrifying.
Despite the boiling rage within him, Morel forced his features into a cordial mask. He had to survive this encounter.
"Monsieur Franck," he said stiffly, "if you would be so kind as to sign here, you may proceed to visit your client."
A bailiff at his side handed over a registry book and an ink-stained quill. Morel himself passed them to André with apparent courtesy.
But André noticed the subtle motion of Morel's wrist: from his sleeve slipped a small coin purse, which he tried to discreetly tuck under the registry log—a final, desperate bribe.
André smiled. Then, he laughed.
A long, loud laugh that rang out through the polished stone halls of the court, echoing up the stairwells. Startled judges and prosecutors emerged from their chambers, peering down to see who dared disrupt the solemn hush of the sacred courthouse.
Morel stood, trembling.
Only then did André step forward. He took the registry book in one hand, but left the purse untouched. As he turned to sign, he flicked his little finger against the bag.
It tumbled from Morel's grip, landing with a crisp clink on the marble tiles. A few gold Louis coins rolled out across the floor, gleaming.
A collective gasp filled the hall.
Feigning surprise, André offered a sheepish bow to the assembled onlookers.
"Mérida," he said with a wry smile, "would you mind collecting those?"
The boy scurried to gather the coins, returned them to the purse, and handed it to André, who promptly tucked it back into Morel's coat pocket.
Then André turned and signed the ledger with a flourish.
He gave a nod to the stunned bailiff, who led him away toward the prison wing.
Behind him, Morel stood frozen. His face was chalk-white. Then, as the last echoes of André's footsteps faded, the assistant let out a strangled sob and collapsed onto the floor, weeping.
No one would ever officially report what had just happened. But the damage was done. The Court of the Châtelet had witnessed it all. And Morel's hopes of becoming a magistrate had just shattered, irreparably.
[Continued Translation – André at Châtelet Court and Babeuf's Prison Visit]
André's open contempt made Morel's face pale instantly. Awkwardly retracting his outstretched hand, he stood there in shame and silence.
As the principal assistant to Judge Faria, Morel had every reason to be proud: born into a family of lawyers, a graduate of the Sorbonne, he was widely expected to ascend to the rank of magistrate by the age of forty. But in a matter of days, the once-promising Morel had become a laughingstock in legal circles. Colleagues whispered about his breach of legal ethics, while Judge Faria himself demanded the damage be undone—he had no desire to spend the next few years rotting in a downgraded circuit court.
"Undo the damage?" Morel sneered inwardly. He had only followed the judge's veiled instructions in obstructing André's attempts to visit his client, and the tax farmer had generously sweetened the deal with a bag of gold coins. And yet, it was this young upstart from Reims—this supposed legal fledgling—who had turned the tables. Cloaking himself in humility and innocence, the boy had masqueraded as a quail, only to reveal himself as a wolf.
Though he wanted nothing more than to destroy the young lawyer, Morel forced himself to smile, his rage barely suppressed.
"Mr. Franck, if you would just sign here, you may proceed to see your client," he said, retrieving a register and an ink-dipped quill from a bailiff and offering them to André.
André returned a calm smile—then noticed a small pouch sliding from Morel's sleeve and tucked beneath the registry, an attempted bribe hidden in plain sight. Clearly, Morel feared one final rejection might spell the end of his career.
That made André laugh. Not a smirk, but a hearty, roaring laugh that echoed up the marble staircases and across the corridors, prompting judges, clerks, and prosecutors to peek out of their offices in alarm. Who dared cause such a racket in the hallowed halls of the criminal court?
When he had everyone's attention, André stepped forward and grabbed the register. As he did, his pinky swept the coin pouch off Morel's fingers, letting it fall with a metallic clatter onto the polished marble floor. Gold louis scattered and spun in all directions.
A wave of gasps rippled through the building.
Feigning an apologetic shrug, André motioned to young Meldar, his assistant, to gather the runaway coins and return them to the pouch. Then, with exaggerated courtesy, he tucked the bag back into Morel's coat pocket.
He signed the registry in swift, practiced strokes and motioned for the stunned bailiff to escort him to the prison.
Morel stood frozen, face ashen, lips trembling. When André finally walked away, the humiliated assistant collapsed to the floor and burst into tears.
No one could believe it—an attempted bribe, openly performed under the watchful eyes of a court filled with dignitaries and legal minds. While no witness would dare testify, the damage was irreversible. Morel's path to the bench was over.
The Châtelet prison was connected to the court by a shaded walkway, its dense canopy and gray masonry casting a dim, funereal light over the path. It was a narrow, brooding corridor, unsettling in its quiet.
At the end stood a heavy iron door, a small window cut into it. A guard knocked three times with a short mallet. Moments later, a grizzled warden peeked through the slot and, after a moment of scrutiny, opened the door.
"Apologies, sir. Only attorneys are permitted to visit detainees," the warden said, blocking Meldar with an outstretched hand.
André's gaze darkened. The bailiff flinched and scurried over to whisper urgently in the warden's ear. Panic flickered in the man's eyes. He stepped aside and bowed them through.
Word of André's theatrics had clearly reached the prison already. The short, round prison chief himself arrived moments later, panting, to escort the lawyer and his assistant personally to Babeuf's cell.
The high-security cell was built entirely of iron, cold and severe. Before André could raise a hand, the warden had already turned the key. With a loud clang, the cell door opened. He bent at the waist like a servant and murmured deferentially:
"Monsieur Franck, as you can see, Citizen Babeuf's cell is clean and in good order. Aside from the slight lack of liberty, nothing is amiss."
André nodded and lowered his handkerchief from his face. Surprisingly, the air inside was fresher than the corridor. The bed was tidy, the floor swept, a desk and chair arranged neatly beside an oil lamp and a washbasin.
Babeuf sat against the wall, immersed in a book. At the sound of the door, he looked up and smiled faintly.
"Meldar," André said softly.
The boy pulled a pouch of silver from his satchel and slipped it into the warden's hand.
"We'll need privacy," André added.
The warden hesitated, then nodded, retreating with the other guards to the far end of the corridor.
Meldar closed the cell door and took up his post outside.
André stepped closer. Up close, he saw that the thirty-year-old Babeuf was not tall, and his face bore the scars of hardship: sallow cheeks, silver-streaked hair, deep lines across his brow. Yet his eyes still gleamed with intelligence and defiance.
Babeuf returned to his desk and dipped a quill in ink. On a scrap of paper, he wrote:
"Thank you—for everything you've done."
André smiled. "It's nothing more than my duty as an advocate."
He took the pen and added: "Marat sends you the Revolution's salute."
After a moment's pause, he continued: "Now, I must ask you several key questions about the case."
Babeuf shook his head and withdrew a thick dossier from under his pillow, handing it over.
"Everything you need is here," he wrote.
As a fellow lawyer, he knew precisely what André would ask, and had prepared accordingly—including several pages of sensitive information, completed only in André's presence.
After reviewing the documents carefully, André wrote: "Do you have anything to ask of me?"
Babeuf shook his head.
André pulled a flint from his coat and struck a flame. He burned the sensitive pages in the cell's washbasin, watching until every letter turned to ash.
Before leaving, he instructed Meldar to visit every three days to deliver news, books, and messages.
By the time André returned to his attic study, the full truth of the case had begun to crystallize in his mind…
Upon returning to the attic, André's mind swam with the implications of what he had just learned. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, revealing a far more sinister and far-reaching scheme than he had anticipated.
Four years prior, the tax farmer Paulze—also known as Lavoisier's father-in-law—had signed a salt and tobacco tax farming contract with the Versailles court. In exchange for an annual remittance of 500,000 livres to the King, Paulze had secured the rights to collect salt and tobacco duties throughout the Grand Picardy region for six years. The contract not only granted him fiscal control but also authorized the establishment of an armed private enforcement corps. This "tax militia," in effect a paramilitary force, was allowed to maintain private prisons, conduct secret arrests, interrogate without oversight, and, in many cases, execute suspected tax evaders extrajudicially.
According to confidential files housed in the Palais de Justice, supplemented by Babeuf's own testimony, this private army had, over the span of several years, killed no fewer than twenty-one peasants and sympathizers who had resisted taxation. Dozens more had been maimed or crippled under torture. The atrocities committed under the guise of fiscal enforcement were staggering in both scale and cruelty.
Thanks to Paulze's connections at Versailles, the perpetrators of these crimes were consistently shielded from justice. On the rare occasion when an officer was brought to court, the punishment amounted to a nominal fine—scarcely a slap on the wrist—paid to the bereaved families.
Then came July 1789, and the Revolution. With the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the August Decrees, feudal rights and noble privileges were officially abolished. Yet, within the Constituent Assembly, the question of whether to terminate tax farming was bitterly divisive. The vested interests of financial elites clashed with the growing revolutionary fervor.
To stave off a political schism, the Assembly issued a toothless appeal via its Taxation Committee: a recommendation that patriotic tax farmers voluntarily reduce levies in the interest of public welfare. It was, unsurprisingly, ignored.
Spurred on by radical voices like Marat and Babeuf, the people began to act on their own. They banded together in self-defense, resisted taxation by force, and took matters into their own hands. Suspected members of the tax enforcement squads were hunted down and strung from roadside trees—grisly retribution for years of abuse.
In Picardy, Paulze's revenues plummeted. Salt and tobacco taxes fell by more than half in 1789. Desperate to stem the tide, the tax farmers retaliated. Local courts, instructed by bribes and political pressure, began rounding up the ringleaders of the resistance. Babeuf was among the first to be arrested—though public outcry eventually forced his release.
Then, in early March, a tax enforcer was found hanged in the countryside near Saint-Quentin, Babeuf's hometown. The next day, based on the testimony of anonymous informants, the local court ordered his arrest.
Because Saint-Quentin lacked a high criminal tribunal, the murder case was transferred to Paris. Babeuf was swiftly taken into custody. To prevent his defense, someone attempted to poison him in his food. Though the guards noticed in time and a physician was able to save his life, the poison severely damaged Babeuf's throat—leaving him unable to speak for weeks.
Worse yet, the lawyer initially assigned to defend him turned out to be a traitor. Bought off by Paulze's associates, he colluded with the court and prosecution to undermine the defense. He accepted the jury selection process without objection, even though it was blatantly rigged.
Fortunately, Marat returned to Paris just in time. Leveraging his network, he made contact with Babeuf and arranged for André to replace the corrupt lawyer.
Now, André fully grasped the magnitude of the task ahead. The political implications were explosive. Paulze was not just a tax farmer—he was deeply enmeshed in the ancien régime, protected by high-ranking allies, and a symbol of everything the Revolution sought to destroy.
As for whether Babeuf or his allies had actually carried out the execution of the tax enforcer, André no longer cared. That was not his duty. A defense attorney does not weigh guilt or innocence—that is the jury's burden. His role was to ensure that justice, not vengeance, guided the proceedings.
But André also knew the jury would not be sympathetic. Twelve bourgeois citizens, drawn from the upper echelons of Parisian society, would be seated. They were unlikely to see a peasant revolutionary as anything other than a criminal.
Even the legendary Mirabeau himself, with thunder in his voice and iron in his logic, could not turn such a jury.
If André hoped to win, he would need a different strategy.