---Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
LE PROCES COMMENCE, blared the front page of Le Monde that morning. "The trial beings," requiring no further elaboration; anyone in France who didn't know what that meant was either comatose or a newborn. The New York Times, in its typically sedate way, informed the public that it was "Day 1 in Diderot Assassination Trial." People magazine announced, "Mischa Barton on Diderot Assassination: 'I Didn't Kill Anybody.' " All this Mischa knew courtesy of one of the guards at the jail in southern Paris where she spent the last two nights before her trial. They'd moved her from the prison where she was staying so that her route to the courthouse would be unknown. The French were taking the death threats seriously.
Mischa traveled in a blue vehicle with sirens on top, a cross between a minivan and an SUV, the word GENDARMERIE stenciled in white on the side. She sat in the back along a bench, where she was restrained at the wrists and ankles and shackled to the bench itself. Across from her sat two armed gendarmes. Their area in the vehicle's rear was sealed off from the driver's cabin by a plastic shield, which had a slit that opened solely for communications. There was some light back there, thanks to the tinted, bulletproof windows.
From what she understood, there were four separate vehicles for the four actresses----each of which was taking a different route----and there were decoy vehicles as well. Whatever else the French wanted to do to them, at least they didn't want them gunned down by some grief-stricken protester. They'd have enough high-profile security lapses for one decade. The heads of the entities primarily responsible for the safety of the French President, the Groupe de Securite de la Presidence de la Republique and the RAID unit---Recherché Assistance Intervention Dissuasion----had resigned following President Diderot's death. Apparently it was no excuse that the president hadn't wanted his security detail, other than Renaud Tissot, to accompany him to Monte Carlo; they weren't supposed to take no for an answer when it came to presidential security, and after his death, heads simply had to roll.
The trail was at the Palais de Justice, which houses the Parisian police force and the courts, including the country's supreme court, the Cour de Cassation. The Palais was located on the Ile de la Cite, an island on the Siene that is also home to Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris as well. Next to the Palais is the Sainte-Chapelle, a chapel where Sebastian and Mischa, some time ago, had spent an afternoon listening to a six-piece orchestra play Debussy's Claire de Lune as daylight streamed through the stained glass windows.
The roads bordering the Palais de Justice were barricaded. A few news trucks had been let in but otherwise the only vehicles allowed passage were the decoys and the ones carrying the defendants. Spectators were lined up along the streets, many of them holding signs. Some of the signs were in French, some in English. Some supported the actresses-----FREE MISCHA BARTON!----but most did not: JUSTICE POUR CESAR; DEATH TO THE KIILLERS! The collective commotion of the crowd, which Mischa heard through the thick windows of the vehicle, left her with the sensation of putting her ear up to the door of a rock concert.
On the Boulevard du Palais, their vehicle passed through the magnificent wrought-iron gates into the courtyard of the Palais itself. Mischa bent her head down to peer up through the window at the main building, where the supreme court was located----the long set of stone steps, the four majestic columns, and the words that she couldn't make out but she knew were there, carved into the structure: LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE.
In the courtyard, which was still open to public view, the vehicle went through an arched passageway that led into a loading area. She was taken out the vehicle and walked through a series of empty hallways, the gendarmerie at her front and back.
Mischa had made this trip often over the last nine months, but the security was much tighter this time----the barricades, the decoy cars. The threats had escalated in the last few weeks. The Palais de Justice had been empties one day last week after a bomb threat, and since the Sainte-Chapelle had been closed to tourists and the Palais limited either to people having business with the court or members of the public willing to undergo the screening, which rivaled that of an Israeli airport.
Or so she'd been told. She'd been cut off from the outside world. She hadn't spoken with, much less seen, her three friends for months, except during court hearings. She'd had only Sebastian and her sisters as visitors. She got most of her information from her lawyer or the prison guards. The guard at the Paris jail for the last two nights was a chatty character named Sammy, who was eager to touch any part of the biggest criminal case in modern French history. Sammy had made the comment that Mischa Barton was the most criminel feminin since Marie Antoinette, which she thought he intended as a compliment, but she didn't recall it turning out so well for Marie Antoinette.
They reached the door of the holding area. One of the gendarmes used a key. She turned to the one holding her arm, a man named Simon, whom she had come to know and who liked to practice his English with her.
"Wish me the best of British," said Mischa.641Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlb5BnyyjZY
She moved into the holding area and a door closed behind her. She heard Simon's response through the door.641Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjNH12Byj4q
"Elles n'ont pas besoin du meilleur des Britanniques," he said to one of his colleagues. "Elles ont besoin d'un miracle."641Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8P9awRZMo5
He didn't think Mischa could hear him. What the hell? He wasn't saying anything she hadn't heard one thousand times already. And she couldn't bring herself to disagree.641Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQL2CtDB0o
They don't need the best of British, he'd said. They need a miracle.641Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ISWWCNdyR
