The trial of Babeuf was scheduled to begin at nine o'clock in the morning.
Yet by half past eight, the courtroom—built to accommodate two hundred—had already been overwhelmed by nearly five hundred spectators. There was not a seat to spare. People sat along the aisles, crowded the corridors, and even stood precariously on the street-facing window ledges. Outside, a throng still pressed to get in, though court officers, dutiful as ever, had formed a solid wall of bodies across the doors. All were kept out save for the occasional tardy journalist.
The courtroom layout resembled that of André's former world: the presiding judge sat on an elevated platform at the front. Below him, two to four clerks or stenographers took their places. To the judge's right stood the witness box; to his left, a lone juror's seat. Facing the bench were the prosecution and defence tables—the prosecutor on the left, the defence counsel on the right—with the dock for the accused enclosed in a half-height wooden fence between them.
At 8:50, all parties except for Judge Faria and the defendant, Babeuf, were in position. The courtroom doors were shut. A few daring reporters tried to push forward to harass the lawyers, but were driven back by bailiffs brandishing sword scabbards, prompting laughter from the gallery. The air crackled with a strange vitality, the crowd barely able to contain its excitement.
At the stroke of nine, the chief clerk called out:
"All rise for the honourable Judge Faria!"
The entire room rose to its feet, eyes fixed on the judge as he entered through a private passage, dressed in a black robe and square hat of office. Only after the clerk's second call—"Be seated!"—did the courtroom settle again.
With the judge's assent, the clerk declared the court in session and instructed the bailiffs to escort the defendant to the dock.
A few moments later, Babeuf was led into the courtroom, shackled at wrists and ankles, flanked by two bailiffs. As he stepped into the accused's enclosure, André, with a blank expression, raised his index and middle fingers in a silent "V"—his own personal signal of victory. Babeuf saw and smiled faintly in return.
But then, something felt wrong.
As the clerk stood again to read the rules and procedure of the trial, André noticed that the bailiffs had made no move to remove the shackles from Babeuf, now seated in the dock. He looked up at Judge Faria—no reaction. Then his gaze shifted toward Prosecutor Pratty, who sat wearing an expression of self-satisfaction.
André chuckled inwardly: "What a bloody idiot. He's just handed me the chance to slap him in the face with the law. If I don't take it, I'd be the fool."
He exchanged a glance with Séchelles, who immediately rose and interrupted the clerk's recitation.
"Your Honour!" Séchelles called in a commanding voice. "Under courtroom procedure, once a defendant has been seated in the designated dock under official guard, all physical restraints must be removed. And yet, as we speak, my client remains chained in hand and foot—an open violation of due process. On behalf of the defence, I issue a formal protest and request immediate correction of this egregious error."
Before the judge could reply, Pratty leapt to his feet.
"Your Honour, the defendant stands accused of a grave and violent crime. These restraints are protective measures, to prevent any unexpected act of aggression—"
"You're certain my client is a murderer?" Séchelles interrupted, his voice suddenly softer, almost trembling.
"Absolutely," Pratty declared, pounding the table with self-righteous fervour. "Babeuf is a murderer. A villain! A butcher!"
He ignored the anxious looks from his own assistants, charging headlong into the trap.
"I now request that the court formally record my accusation against Prosecutor Pratty," Séchelles thundered, raising his arms like a prophet calling down judgment. He turned to the audience and declared:
"As an officer of the court, I denounce this man for violating the law of the land and trampling upon the Declaration of the Rights of Man. According to Article IX of that Declaration: All persons are presumed innocent until declared guilty; and any harsh treatment not necessary to secure a prisoner must be severely punished by law."
A storm erupted. The gallery stomped and roared in support, a wall of outrage slamming against Pratty's desk. The crowd cried out in righteous anger, condemning the prosecutor's cruelty. Judge Faria rang his bell again and again, repeating: "Order! Order in the court!" until the shouting began to subside.
Inwardly, the judge cursed: "What a senseless fool." He glared at the prosecutor, his hand pinching the bridge of his nose to regain composure.
Then, reluctantly, he gave the order: the bailiffs were to remove the shackles from the accused. However, he refused to entertain the formal accusation against the prosecutor.
Séchelles shrugged, returned to his seat amid fresh applause, and leaned back with a satisfied smirk. Across the courtroom, the once-triumphant prosecutor now seemed to be shrinking into the folds of his own ample flesh.
The clerk, after some delay, resumed his interrupted announcement
Several streets away from the clamour of the Châtelet courtroom, the Tuileries Palace stood in outward serenity, undisturbed by the tempests of justice.
Inside, Louis XVI sat in his study, playing a quiet game of draughts with the young Dauphin, Louis-Charles. The eldest princess read silently nearby, and as for the queen, she was most likely in the palace gardens, strolling with the king's sister.
But at some point, the monarch began to hear distant commotion—chanting, shouting, cries rising from the square near the riverside.
The sound was unmistakable.
Louis XVI's hands trembled.
It was that kind of crowd, just like those that had come for him in Versailles months ago.
Panic seized him. He leapt up, hurried to shut the windows, pulled the thick velvet drapes tight, and summoned his daughter to stay with the Dauphin (Prince) while he stepped out to investigate.
Moments later, Lieutenant Lefebvre of the royal guards came running with news:
"Your Majesty, it is a demonstration in support of Citizen Babeuf, who is on trial today. The people are also voicing their anger against the tax farmers. Just now, someone read aloud a speech that the defence lawyer André delivered in front of the courthouse."
The king let out a sigh of relief.
So the outcry was not aimed at the monarchy. Not yet. That was something.
As for Babeuf, he had no idea who the man was, nor did he care to learn. But the name "André" sparked a faint recollection.
"André…," the king murmured.
Lefebvre, ever the dutiful interpreter, began to recount the tale—from the young lawyer's stabbing in front of the Palais de Justice, to his miraculous recovery (widely attributed to divine grace), his role as defence counsel in a high-profile case, and the rumour that he was soon to be appointed as prosecutor of the Special Tax Tribunal.
Louis XVI had no interest in the latter half of this story. What truly caught his attention was the part about resurrection.
A miracle.
The king, a devout Catholic, was fascinated. Though his confessors and bishops warned him sternly against such heresies, he couldn't help but wonder.
"Lieutenant," he said before leaving, "should you ever invite Citizen André to the palace for any reason, inform me in advance."
"At once, Your Majesty," replied Lefebvre, saluting and bowing the king back into his chambers.
Far from the calm of the Tuileries, another storm brewed—not in the streets, but in the drawing room of a grand villa on Île Saint-Louis, residence of Antoine Lavoisier.
There, Monsieur Paulze had arrived in a fury and was berating his daughter.
"Marie! Why did you change the donation amount? We had agreed to offer André three hundred thousand livres—and you told him it was thirty thousand!?"
The young Madame Lavoisier was defiant.
"We gave only one hundred thousand to the Duke of Orléans," she said. "What makes a petty lawyer—an unworthy man like him—deserve triple that?"
There was something in her tone, in the very set of her features, that suggested more than mere prudence. She disliked André—had, from the very first meeting. The second encounter had only deepened her disdain.
Paulze was apoplectic.
"Antoine, you must discipline your wife! Her obstinacy, her arrogance, her self-righteousness will send all of us to the gallows!" he shouted, calling out to his son-in-law, who sat calmly at a desk across the room, lost in the pages of a scientific treatise.
Lavoisier sighed. He removed his spectacles, folded his papers, and walked over. His voice was gentle, almost tender.
"Marie, your father is not exaggerating. The creation of this Special Tax Tribunal is only the first step. If we fail to satisfy the public, if we deny the politicians their share, the criminal trials will come next."
This was the message André had left them with—spoken softly, but clear in its threat.
"Yet our actions were approved by the King and the Privy Council," Marie protested. "What we did was entirely legal."
"Legal then," Lavoisier said, "but not now."
He had studied law at the Sorbonne. Though he never practiced, the instincts of a jurist had never quite left him. And now, across Paris, wagonloads of so-called evidence were being compiled against the tax farmers—some of it accurate, much of it invented, all of it damning.
But none of that mattered.
What mattered was that tax farming had become a symbol of tyranny, a scourge in the eyes of the people. They whispered that tax farmers boiled infants for soup, that they consumed women's hearts at secret banquets.
Lavoisier looked his wife in the eye.
"Tax farming predates 1789, my love. And by the August Decrees, all laws inconsistent with the current regime must be abolished. We were left untouched until now only because our enemies were divided. But André has changed the game. The balance is broken.
He, Paulze, and the others—we are all now marked men. Sheep waiting for the butcher's knife.
And that butcher will be André Franck. Before the month is out, the Palais de Justice will sign the appointment papers. He will become the state prosecutor of the Special Tax Tribunal."
Marie opened her mouth again, frustration flashing in her eyes.
"We still have our own soldiers—we could—"
"Silence!"
Paulze and Lavoisier roared in unison.
To assassinate a lawyer of growing renown—a rising star in the courts—would be suicide. Successful or not, such an act would unite the entire city against them: the Palais de Justice, the National Assembly, the Hôtel de Ville, and the furious citizens of Paris.
"No," Lavoisier said at last, "I will come forward."
He would no longer remain behind the curtain. If they were to weather this storm, he would have to act—leverage his status as a member of the Academy, his scientific prestige, his network of contacts. Anything to stop André's advance.
Back in the criminal chamber of the Châtelet courthouse, the murder trial of Citizen Babeuf had formally begun.
The prosecution submitted its final list of witnesses—originally four in number, now reduced to two, as one had withdrawn. Judge Faria approved the names; both would appear in due order.
The first to take the stand was a broad-shouldered man with a bandaged arm. His name: Fide.
At the sight of him, André almost laughed aloud. Big head, thick neck—either a bourgeois or a cook, he thought. The man's clothing and clumsy manner made it clear: not a man of wealth, then likely the latter.
This cook—witness, rather—claimed to have been walking home with the victim on the day of the crime, when they were ambushed by Babeuf and others. He survived, he said, only by throwing himself to the ground and playing dead.
The prosecution, for once, followed procedure. No improvisation this time. Pratty began by solemnly reading the deposition of another witness who could not attend—the law allowed this if the witness was illiterate or otherwise unable to appear. He then turned to the man in the box.
"Monsieur Fide," he said, "is the statement I have just read an accurate account of your experience?"
"Perfectly accurate, monsieur!" Fide replied, his tone brimming with eager conviction.
"You are certain that every word reflects what truly occurred?"
"Absolutely certain, monsieur!" The man nodded vigorously, eager to affirm his falsehoods.
"Are you prepared to accept full legal responsibility for all that you have stated today?" Pratty's voice rose slightly, and he cast a sidelong glance at André, who sat with eyes closed, unmoved, as if dozing.
The prosecutor took it as fear—and it pleased him.
"Utterly prepared, monsieur!" cried the cook-witness, raising his left hand to the sky in solemn oath, swearing before God Himself.