Mr Laurent Fabius, former prime minister, president of the National Assembly, fourth-ranking official of the French Republic, had the dark-circled eyes of a man who has not slept well. For more than six years, he has waited for this trial.
The AIDs scandal that marred the 1984-86 premiership of Mr Fabius halted what appeared to be an inexorable rise to the Elysee Palace. The son of a rich Paris antique dealer, Mr Fabius graduated from France's most prestigious grandes ecoles. He dated beautiful women, rode fine horses and drove expensive sports cars. At the age of 38 he became the youngest prime minister in French history.
With its white walls, chrome and fluorescent lighting and cold air conditioning, the special court where Mr Fabius and two of his former ministers went on trial for manslaughter on Tuesday feels like an operating room.
"Such responsibilites were unusual for someone your age," the presiding judge said almost tenderly when he questioned Mr Fabius yesterday morning. Mr Fabius's fingers trembled as he picked up notes, but as the day wore on, the old power instinct took over and soon he - not the judge - was directing proceedings.
The spread of AIDs had been the subject of European and French government health directives since 1983, but as Mr Fabius told it yesterday it was first brought to his attention in an April 29th, 1985 memorandum by his technical adviser on industrial affairs, entitled "AIDs diagnosis".
The memo informed the prime minister that the Pasteur Institute's test was now operational and that Pasteur could corner much of the market should the government order mandatory testing of blood donors. "I am favourable," Mr Fabius wrote in the margin. "Prepare things discreetly."
Although the memo was mainly concerned with Pasteur's commercial prospects, Mr Fabius insisted yesterday that his positive decision referred only to mandatory testing and in no way constituted promotion of the Pasteur test over a US competitor. "With all the strength that is in me, I want to say that the question of registering the tests was never brought to my attention," he said.
The Pasteur test was licensed on June 21st, 1985, the US test more than a month later. Mr Fabius's chief scientific adviser, Mr Francois Gros, was the former director of Pasteur. Some 500 haemophiliacs and transfusion recipients contracted AIDs from tainted blood during the two months that Mr Fabius's cabinet stalled the decision.
Marie and Jean-Paul Hugues had driven 800 km from Nimes, where they own a vineyard, to hear Mr Fabius's testimony. "Our son died because the government moved too slowly," Mr Hugues told me during the recess. "The prime minister lies when he says he didn't know the Abbott test was ready."
Mrs Hugues pulled a photo of Sylvain from her handbag. He was a fragile-looking, brown-haired boy with intelligent, suffering eyes and a bandaged forearm where he received transfusions. A haemophiliac, Sylvain died aged 13.
"I want them to go to prison," Mr Hugues said. "If only for a few months. Not for vengeance, but so they will realise what they did."