The trial opened at eleven in the morning. His father and the rest of the family were called as witnesses, and Victor went with them to the court.
To Victor the trial was a wretched mockery of justice. What was being decided there was whether the fruit of his curiosity and lawless work would cause the deaths of two people. One was the smiling child already dead. The other was Justine, facing a far more dreadful death, branded with every kind of infamy.
He would a thousand times rather have confessed to the crime laid on Justine, he says. But he had not been there when it was committed. Such a confession would be taken for a madman’s raving and would not free her.