The President: "Do you refuse the
debate?"

Verger: "No. My witnesses!"

The President: "In consequence you must
answer me—"

Verger: " I shall not say more than — my
witnesses! my witnesses!"

The Court retired, and returned with a
decision not to call the witnesses.

The President: "Rise and answer."

Verger: "I refuse to answer."

The President: "You refuse the debate?"

Verger: "I refuse formally."

The President: "Call the first witness."

Verger having been prevented from calling
his witnesses, or reading his documents,
refused to hear the Procureur-Général Vaïsse.

Procureur-Général : " We have no summing
up to make. The magistrate is not master of
his emotions— "

Verger: "Weep then."

The President: "Hold your tongue."

The Procureur-Général : " In the moment
of beginning to speak — "

Verger: "You tremble."

The Procureur-Général — "we feel disgust
—"

Verger: "I also for you — "

The Procureur-Général : " at encountering
such an adversary."

Verger: " Adversary! Adversary! Yes,
that is the word."

The President: " Verger, won't you be
quiet?"

Verger: " I will not suffer him to speak
like that. I will not suffer it."

The President: "Will you hear the
summing up ? "

Verger: "I refuse absolutely. I refuse to
him as he has refused to me, or else I shall
have all my papers read—"

The President: " The accusation must do
its duty as well as the defence."

Verger: " I oppose it. Everything must
be recommenced."

The President: "Recommence what?"

Verger: " Everything done this morning.
Everything is to do over again for my
defence.

Procureur-Général : " The summing up
must be heard — "

Verger, getting up: "I oppose it."

Procureur-Général " in spite of the
clamours — "

Verger: "I oppose it — the guillotine!"

Procureur-Général — "of the accused — "

Verger: "The guillotine! — the guillotine!
—I will listen to nothing."

Procureur-Général — "who tries — "

Verger: "I oppose it."

Procureur-Général— "to trouble us."

Verger: "The guillotine!"

Procureur-Général : " For the accomplishment
of our duty we demand the application
of the law which authorises the expulsion of
the accused."

Verger: I mock it — I mock everything
—there is nothing but Jesus Christ that I do
not mock."

The President: " The Court will retire and
deliberate."

Verger: " That's right — be off, and vive la
guillotine!"

The Court on returning, having ordered his
expulsion, Verger retired without uttering a
word.

In his absence, the Procureur-Général said:

"Ambitious of all sorts of celebrity, he has
sought the celebrity of the scaffold. Let him
have it: and if at the last moment he repeats
the cry he raised just now — ' people, defend
me'—let him hear, what he has just heard,
the cry— ' Assassin! Assassin! ' '

Verger was found guilty without extenuating
circumstances, and when his sentence to
death was communicated to him in the
Conciergerie: all he said was " What justice!"

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

THE whole drama of the Archbishop and
the Abbé exhibits the antipodal contrast
that there is between French and British
ideas and manners. I am sure it would be
an unworthy thing to dwell upon this
contrast in a pharisaical spirit; and I believe it
would be a wrong thing to allow the occasion
to pass without deriving lessons from it,
suitable for the mutual instruction society,
which is happily established between
ourselves and our brave and brilliant allies.

The physiologist will not fail to see in
Verger an extraordinary example of
homicidal exaltation. The brain of every person
afflicted with homicidal mania, which has
been dissected by competent anatomists,
has exhibited disease, injuries, lesions, or
congestions. The patients of this malady
have generally very nervous and very
susceptible temperaments, and burning and
sleepless heads. Physiological crises in the
human organism, male and female, but
especially female, have often been marked by
homicidal mania. Many persons have killed
others with a view to killing themselves
afterwards. Many persons have been driven by
an unconquerable impulse to kill their
children, whom they loved passionately. The
injury to the brain in all these cases is
traceable to a physiological cause.

Verger saw before him only the alternative
of suicide or assassination. He said he felt
he must either throw himself into the river,
blow his brains out, or stab the Archbishop.
He could not consent to incarceration in a
madhouse. There is homicidal exaltation in
the monstrous state of mind in which a man
could not see any escape from the madhouse
except by rushing upon one or the other of
the horns of a homicidal dilemma. His
intellect was probably vigorous, except on this
point. Moreover, there is homicidal exaltation
in his family, his mother, and one of his
brothers having committed suicide.

Mental philosophy explains the tendency