I.
Thus M. Galpin triumphed, and M. Gransiere had reason to be proud of his eloquence. Jacques de Boiscoran had been found guilty.
But he looked calm, and even haughty, as the president, M. Domini, pronounced the terrible sentence, a thousand times braver at that moment than the man who, facing the squad of soldiers from whom he is to receive death, refuses to have his eyes bandaged, and himself gives the word of command with a firm voice.
That very morning, a few moments before the beginning of the trial, he had said to Dionysia,—
“I know what is in store for me; but I am innocent. They shall not see me turn pale, nor hear me ask for mercy.”
And, gathering up all the energy of which the human heart is capable, he had made a supreme effort at the decisive moment, and kept his word.
Turning quietly to his counsel at the moment when the last words of the president were lost among the din of the crowd, he said,—
“Did I not tell you that the day would come when you yourself would be the first to put a weapon into my hands?”
M. Folgat rose promptly.
He showed neither the anger nor the disappointment of an advocate who has just had a cause which he knew to be just.
“That day has not come yet,” he replied. “Remember your promise. As long as there remains a ray of hope, we shall fight. Now we have much more than mere hope at this moment. In less than a month, in a week, perhaps to-morrow, we shall have our revenge.”
The unfortunate man shook his head.
“I shall nevertheless have undergone the disgrace of a condemnation,” he murmured.
The taking the ribbon of the Legion of Honor from his buttonhole, he handed it to M. Folgat, saying—
“Keep this in memory of me, and if I never regain the right to wear it”—
In the meantime, however, the gendarmes, whose duty it was to guard the prisoner, had risen; and the sergeant said to Jacques,—
“We must go, sir. Come, come! You need not despair. You need not lose courage. All is not over yet. There is still the appeal for you, and then the petition for pardon, not to speak of what may happen, and cannot be foreseen.”
M. Folgat was allowed to accompany the prisoner, and was getting ready to do so; but the latter said, with a pained voice,—
“No, my friend, please leave me alone. Others have more need of your presence than I have. Dionysia, my poor father, my mother. Go to them. Tell them that the horror of my condemnation lies in the thought of them. May they forgive me for the affliction which I cause them, and for the disgrace of having me for their son, for her betrothed!”
Then, pressing the hands of his counsel, he added,—
“And you, my friends, how shall I ever express to you my gratitude? Ah! if incomparable talents, and matchless zeal and ability, had sufficed, I know I should be free. But instead of that”—he pointed at the little door through which he was to pass, and said in a heartrending tone,—
“Instead of that, there is the door to the galleys. Henceforth”—
A sob cut short his words. His strength was exhausted; for if there are, so to say, no limits to the power of endurance of the spirit, the energy of the body has its bounds. Refusing the arm which the sergeant offered him, he rushed out of the room.
M. Magloire was well-nigh beside himself with grief.
“Ah! why could we not save him?” he said to his young colleague. “Let them come and speak to me again of the power of conviction. But we must not stay here: let us go!”
They threw themselves into the crowd, which was slowly dispersing, all palpitating yet with the excitement of the day.
A strange reaction was already beginning to set in,—a reaction perfectly illogic, and yet intelligible, and by no means rare under similar circumstances.
Jacques de Boiscoran, an object of general execration as long as he was only suspected, regained the sympathy of all the moment he was condemned. It was as if the fatal sentence had wiped out the horror of the crime. He was pitied; his fate was deplored; and as they thought of his family, his mother, and his betrothed, they almost cursed the severity of the judges.
Besides, even the least observant among those present had been struck by the singular course which the proceedings had taken. There was not one, probably, in that vast assembly who did not feel that there was a mysterious and unexplored side of the case, which neither the prosecution nor the defence had chosen to approach. Why had Cocoleu been mentioned only once, and then quite incidentally? He was an idiot, to be sure; but it was nevertheless through his evidence alone that suspicions had been aroused against M. de Boiscoran. Why had he not been summoned either by the prosecution or by the defence?
The evidence given by Count Claudieuse, also, although apparently so conclusive at the moment, was now severely criticised.
The most indulgent said,—
“That was not well done. That was a trick. Why did he not speak out before? People do not wait for a man to be down before they strike him.”
Others added,—
“And did you notice how M. de Boiscoran and Count Claudieuse looked at each other? Did you hear what they said to each other? One might have sworn that there was something else, something very different from a mere lawsuit, between them.”
And on all sides people repeated,—
“At all events, M. Folgat is right. The whole matter is far from being cleared up. The jury was long before they agreed. Perhaps M. de Boiscoran would have been acquitted, if, at the last moment, M. Gransiere had not announced the impending death of Count Claudieuse in the adjoining room.”
M. Magloire and M. Folgat listened to all these remarks, as they heard them in the crowd here and there, with great satisfaction; for in spite of all the assertions of magistrates and judges, in spite of all the thundering condemnations against the practice, public opinion will find an echo in the court-room; and, more frequently than we think, public opinion does dictate the verdict of the jury.
“And now,” said M. Magloire to his young colleague, “now we can be content. I know Sauveterre by heart. I tell you public opinion is henceforth on our side.”
By dint of perseverance they made their way, at last, out through the narrow door of the court-room, when one of the ushers stopped them.
“They wish to see you,” said the man.
“Who?”
“The family of the prisoner. Poor people! They are all in there, in M. Mechinet’s office. M. Daubigeon told me to keep it for them. The Marchioness de Boiscoran also was carried there when she was taken ill in the court-room.”
He accompanied the two gentlemen, while telling them this, to the end of the hall; then he opened a door, and said,—
“They are in there,” and withdrew discreetly.
There, in an easy-chair, with closed eyes, and half-open lips, lay Jacques’s mother. Her livid pallor and her stiff limbs made her look like a dead person; but, from time to time, spasms shook her whole body, from head to foot. M. de Chandore stood on one side, and the marquis, her husband, on the other, watching her with mournful eyes and in perfect silence. They had been thunderstruck; and, from the moment when the fatal sentence fell upon their ears, neither of them had uttered a word.
Dionysia alone seemed to have preserved the faculty of reasoning and moving. But her face was deep purple; her dry eyes shone with a painful light; and her body shook as with fever. As soon as the two advocates appeared, she cried,—
“And you call this human justice?”
And, as they were silent, she added,—-
“Here is Jacques condemned to penal labor; that is to say, he is judicially dishonored, lost, disgraced, forever cut off from human society. He is innocent; but that does not matter. His best friends will know him no longer: no hand will touch his hand hereafter; and even those who were most proud of his affection will pretend to have forgotten his name.”
“I understand your grief but too well, madam,” said M. Magloire.
“My grief is not as great as my indignation,” she broke in. “Jacques must be avenged, and he shall be avenged! I am only twenty, and he is not thirty yet: there is a whole life before us which we can devote to the work of his rehabilitation; for I do not mean to abandon him. I! His undeserved misfortunes make him a thousand times dearer to me, and almost sacred. I was his betrothed this morning: this evening I am his wife. His condemnation was our nuptial benediction. And if it is true, as grandpapa says, that the law prohibits a prisoner to marry the woman he loves, well, I will be his without marriage.”
Dionysia spoke all this aloud, so loud that it seemed she wanted all the earth to hear what she was saying.
“Ah! let me reassure you by a single word, madam,” said M. Folgat. “We have not yet come to that. The sentence is not final.”
The Marquis de Boiscoran and M. de Chandore started.
“What do you mean?”
“An oversight which M. Galpin has committed makes the whole proceeding null and void. You will ask how a man of his character, so painstaking and so formal, should have made such a blunder. Probably because he was blinded by passion. Why had nobody noticed this oversight? Because fate owed us this compensation. There can be no question about the matter. The defect is a defect of form; and the law provides expressly for the case. The sentence must be declared void, and we shall have another trial.”
“And you never told us anything of that?” asked Dionysia.
“We hardly dared to think of it,” replied M. Magloire. “It was one of those secrets which we dare not confide to our own pillow. Remember, that, in the course of the proceedings, the error might have been corrected at any time. Now it is too late. We have time before us; and the conduct of Count Claudieuse relieves us from all restraint of delicacy. The veil shall be torn now.”
The door opened violently, interrupting his words. Dr. Seignebos entered, red with anger, and darting fiery glances from under his gold spectacles.
“Count Claudieuse?” M. Folgat asked eagerly.
“Is next door,” replied the doctor. “They have had him down on a mattress, and his wife is by his side. What a profession ours is! Here is a man, a wretch, whom I should be most happy to strangle with my own hands; and I am compelled to do all I can to recall him to life: I must lavish my attentions upon him, and seek every means to relieve his sufferings.”
“Is he any better?”
“Not at all! Unless a special miracle should be performed in his behalf, he will leave the court-house only feet forward, and that in twenty-four hours. I have not concealed it from the countess; and I have told her, that, if she wishes her husband to die in peace with Heaven, she has but just time to send for a priest.”
“And has she sent for one?”
“Not at all! She told me her husband would be terrified by the appearance of a priest, and that would hasten his end. Even when the good priest from Brechy came of his own accord, she sent him off unceremoniously.”
“Ah the miserable woman!” cried Dionysia.
And, after a moment’s reflection, she added,—
“And yet that may be our salvation. Yes, certainly. Why should I hesitate? Wait for me here: I am coming back.”
She hurried out. Her grandpapa was about to follow her; but M. Folgat stopped him.
“Let her do it,” he said,—“let her do it!”
It had just struck ten o’clock. The court-house, just now as full and as noisy as a bee-hive, was silent and deserted. In the immense hall, badly lighted by a smoking lamp, there were only two men to be seen. One was the priest from Brechy, who was praying on his knees close to a door; and the other was the watchman, who was slowly walking up and down, and whose steps resounded there as in a church.
Dionysia went straight up to the latter.
“Where is Count Claudieuse?” she asked.
“There, madam,” replied the man, pointing at the door before which the priest was praying,—“there, in the private office of the commonwealth attorney.”
“Who is with him?”
“His wife, madam, and a servant.”
“Well, go in and tell the Countess Claudieuse,—but so that her husband does not hear you,—that Miss Chandore desires to see her a few moments.”
The watchman made no objection, and went in. But, when he came back, he said to the young girl,—
“Madam, the countess sends word that she cannot leave her husband, who is very low.”
She stopped him by an impatient gesture, and said,—
“Never mind! Go back and tell the countess, that, if she does not come out, I shall go in this moment; that, if it must be, I shall force my way in; that I shall call for help; that nothing will keep me. I must absolutely see her.”
“But, madam”—
“Go! Don’t you see that it is a question of life and death?”
There was such authority in her voice, that the watchman no longer hesitated. He went in once more, and reappeared a moment after.
“Go in,” he said to the young girl.
She went in, and found herself in a little anteroom which preceded the office of the commonwealth attorney. A large lamp illuminated the room. The door leading to the room in which the count was lying was closed.
In the centre of the room stood the Countess Claudieuse. All these successive blows had not broken her indomitable energy. She looked pale, but calm.
“Since you insist upon it, madam,” she began, “I come to tell you myself that I cannot listen to you. Are you not aware that I am standing between two open graves,—that of my poor girl, who is dying at my house, and that of my husband, who is breathing his last in there?”
She made a motion as if she were about to retire; but Dionysia stopped her by a threatening look, and said with a trembling voice,—
“If you go back into that room where your husband is, I shall go back with you, and I shall speak before him. I shall ask you right before him, how you dare order a priest away from his bedside at the moment of death, and whether, after having robbed him of all his happiness in life, you mean to make him unhappy in all eternity.”
Instinctively the countess drew back.
“I do not understand you,” she said.
“Yes, you do understand me, madam. Why will you deny it? Do you not see that I know every thing, and that I have guessed what you have not told me? Jacques was your lover; and your husband has had his revenge.”
“Ah!” cried the countess, “that is too much; that is too much!”
“And you have permitted it,” Dionysia went on with breathless haste; “and you did not come, and cry out in open court that your husband was a false witness! What a woman you must be! You do not mind it, that your love carries a poor unfortunate man to the galleys. You mean to live on with this thought in your heart, that the man whom you love is innocent, and nevertheless, disgraced forever, and cut off from human society. A priest might induce the count to retract his statement, you know very well; and hence you refuse to let the priest from Brechy come to his bedside. And what is the end and aim of all your crimes? To save your false reputation as an honest woman. Ah! that is miserable; that is mean; that is infamous!”
The countess was roused at last. What all M. Folgat’s skill and ability had not been able to accomplish, Dionysia obtained in an instant by the force of her passion. Throwing aside her mask, the countess exclaimed with a perfect burst of rage,—
“Well, then, no, no! I have not acted so, and permitted all this to happen, because I care for my reputation. My reputation!—what does it matter? It was only a week ago, when Jacques had succeeded in escaping from prison, I offered to flee with him. He had only to say a word, and I should have given up my family, my children, my country, every thing, for him. He answered, ‘Rather the galleys!’”
In the midst of all her fearful sufferings, Dionysia’s heart filled with unspeakable happiness as she heard these words. Ah! now she could no longer doubt Jacques.
“He has condemned himself, you see,” continued the countess. “I was quite willing to ruin myself for him, but certainly not for another woman.”
“And that other woman—no doubt you mean me!”
“Yes!—you for whose sake he abandoned me,—you whom he was going to marry,—you with whom he hoped to enjoy long happy years, and a happiness not furtive and sinful like ours, but a legitimate, honest happiness.”
Tears were trembling in Dionysia’s eyes. She was beloved: she thought of what she must suffer who was not beloved.
“And yet I should have been generous,” she murmured. The countess broke out into a fierce, savage laugh.
“And the proof of it is,” said the young girl, “that I came to offer you a bargain.”
“A bargain?”
“Yes. Save Jacques, and, by all that is sacred to me in the world, I promise I will enter a convent: I will disappear, and you shall never hear my name any more.”
Intense astonishment seized the countess, and she looked at Dionysia with a glance full of doubt and mistrust. Such devotion seemed to her too sublime not to conceal some snare.
“You would really do that?” she asked.
“Unhesitatingly.”
“You would make a great sacrifice for my benefit?”
“For yours? No, madam, for Jacques’s.”
“You love him very dearly, do you?”
“I love him dearly enough to prefer his happiness to my own a thousand times over. Even if I were buried in the depths of a convent, I should still have the consolation of knowing that he owed his rehabilitation to me; and I should suffer less in knowing that he belonged to another than that he was innocent, and yet condemned.”
But, in proportion as the young girl thus confirmed her sincerity, the brow of the countess grew darker and sterner, and passing blushes mantled her cheek. At last she said with haughty irony,—
“Admirable!”
“Madam!”
“You condescend to give up M. de Boiscoran. Will that make him love me? You know very well he will not. You know that he loves you alone. Heroism with such conditions is easy enough. What have you to fear? Buried in a convent, he will love you only all the more ardently, and he will execrate me all the more fervently.”
“He shall never know any thing of our bargain!”
“Ah! What does that matter? He will guess it, if you do not tell him. No: I know what awaits me. I have felt it now for two years,—this agony of seeing him becoming daily more detached from me. What have I not done to keep him near me! How I have stooped to meanness, to falsehood, to keep him a single day longer, perhaps a single hour! But all was useless. I was a burden to him. He loved me no longer; and my love became to him a heavier load than the cannon-ball which they will fasten to his chains at the galleys.”
Dionysia shuddered.
“That is horrible!” she murmured.
“Horrible! Yes, but true. You look amazed. That is because you have as yet only seen the morning dawn of your love: wait for the dark evening, and you will understand me. Is not the story of all of us women the same! I have seen Jacques at my feet as you see him at yours: the vows he swears to you, he once swore to me; and he swore them to me with the same voice, tremulous with passion, and with the same burning glances. But you think you will be his wife, and I never was. What does that matter? What does he tell you? That he will love you forever, because his love is under the protection of God and of men. He told me, precisely because our love was not thus protected, that we should be united by indissoluble bonds,—bonds stronger than all others. You have his promise: so had I. And the proof of it is that I gave him every thing,—my honor and the honor of my family, and that I would have given him still more, if there had been any more to give. And now to be betrayed, forsaken, despised, to sink lower and lower, until at last I must become the object of your pity! To have fallen so low, that you should dare come and offer me to give up Jacques for my benefit! Ah, that is maddening! And I should let the vengeance I hold in my hands slip from me at your bidding! I should be stupid enough, blind enough, to allow myself to be touched by your hypocritical tears! I should secure your happiness by the sacrifice of my reputation! No, madam, cherish no such hope!”
Her voice expired in her throat in a kind of toneless rattle. She walked up and down a few times in the room. Then she placed herself straight before Dionysia, and, looking fixedly into her eyes, she asked,—
“Who suggested to you this plan of coming here, this supreme insult which you tried to inflict upon me?”
Dionysia was seized with unspeakable horror, and hardly found heart to reply.
“No one,” she murmured.
“M. Folgat?”
“Knows nothing of it.”
“And Jacques?”
“I have not seen him. The thought occurred to me quite suddenly, like an inspiration on high. When Dr. Seignebos told me that you had refused to admit the priest from Brechy, I said to myself, ‘This is the last misfortune, and the greatest of them all! If Count Claudieuse dies without retracting, Jacques can never be fully restored, whatever may happen hereafter, not even if his innocence should be established.’ Then I made up my mind to come to you. Ah! it was a hard task. But I was in hopes I might touch your heart, or that you might be moved by the greatness of my sacrifice.”
The countess was really moved. There is no heart absolutely bad, as there is none altogether good. As she listened to Dionysia’s passionate entreaty, her resolution began to grow weaker.
“Would it be such a great sacrifice?” she asked.
Tears sprang to the eyes of the poor young girl.
“Alas!” she said, “I offer you my life. I know very well you will not be long jealous of me.”
She was interrupted by groans, which seemed to come from the room in which the count was lying.
The countess half-opened the door; and immediately a feeble, and yet imperious voice was heard calling out,—
“Genevieve, I say, Genevieve!”
“I am coming, my dear, in a moment,” replied the countess.
“What security can you give me,” she said, in a hard and stern voice, after having closed the door again,—“what security do you give me, that if Jacques’s innocence were established, and he reinstated, you would not forget your promises?”
“Ah, madam! How or upon what do you want me to swear that I am ready to disappear. Choose your own securities, and I will do whatever you require.”
Then, sinking down on her knees, before the countess, she went on,—
“Here I am at your feet, madam, humble and suppliant,—I whom you accuse of a desire to insult you. Have pity on Jacques! Ah! if you loved him as much as I do, you would not hesitate.”
The countess raised her suddenly and quickly, and holding her hands in her own, looked at her for more than a minute without saying a word, but with heaving bosom and trembling lips. At last she asked in a voice which was so deeply affected, that it was hardly intelligible.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Induce Count Claudieuse to retract.”
The countess shook her head.
“It would be useless to try. You do not know the count. He is a man of iron. You might tear his flesh inch by inch with hot iron pincers, and he would not take back one of his words. You cannot conceive what he has suffered, nor the depth of the hatred, the rage, and the thirst of vengeance, which have accumulated in his heart. It was to torture me that he brought me here to his bedside. Only five minutes ago he told me that he died content, since Jacques was declared guilty, and condemned through his evidence.”
She was conquered: her energy was exhausted, and tears came to her eyes.
“He has been so cruelly tried!” she went on. “He loved me to distraction; he loved nothing in the world but me. And I—Ah, if we could know, if we could foresee! No, I shall never be able to induce him to retract.”
Dionysia almost forgot her own great grief.
“Nor do I expect you to obtain that favor,” she said very gently.
“Who, then?”
“The priest from Brechy. He will surely find words to shake even the firmest resolution. He can speak in the name of that God, who, even on the cross, forgave those who crucified Him.”
One moment longer the countess hesitated; and then, overcoming finally the last rebellious impulses of her pride, she said,—
“Well, I will call the priest.”
“And I, madam, I swear I will keep my promise.”
But the countess stopped her, and said, making a supreme effort over herself,—
“No: I shall try to save Jacques without making conditions. Let him be yours. He loves you, and you were ready to sacrifice your life for his sake. He forsakes me; but I sacrifice my honor to him. Farewell!”
And hastening to the door, while Dionysia returned to her friends, she summoned the priest from Brechy.
II.
M. Daubigeon, the commonwealth attorney, learned that morning from his chief clerk what had happened, and how the proceedings in the Boiscoran case were necessarily null and void on account of a fatal error in form. The counsel of the defence had lost no time, and, after spending the whole night in consultation, had early that morning presented their application for a new trial to the court.
The commonwealth attorney took no pains to conceal his satisfaction.
“Now,” he cried, “this will worry my friend Galpin, and clip his wings considerably; and yet I had called his attention to the lines of Horace, in which he speaks of Phaeton’s sad fate, and says,—
‘Terret ambustus Phaeton avaras Spes.’
But he would not listen to me, forgetting, that, without prudence, force is a danger. And there he is now, in great difficulty, I am sure.”
And at once he made haste to dress, and to go and see M. Galpin in order to hear all the details accurately, as he told his clerk, but, in reality, in order to enjoy to his heart’s content the discomfiture of the ambitious magistrate.
He found him furious, and ready to tear his hair.
“I am disgraced,” he repeated: “I am ruined; I am lost. All my prospects, all my hopes, are gone. I shall never be forgiven for such an oversight.”
To look at M. Daubigeon, you would have thought he was sincerely distressed.
“Is it really true,” he said with an air of assumed pity,—“is it really true, what they tell me, that this unlucky mistake was made by you?”
“By me? Yes, indeed! I forgot those wretched details which a scholar knows by heart. Can you understand that? And to say that no one noticed my inconceivable blindness! Neither the first court of inquiry, nor the attorney-general himself, nor the presiding judge, ever said a word about it. It is my fate. And that is to be the result of my labors. Everybody, no doubt, said, ‘Oh! M. Galpin has the case in hand; he knows all about it: no need to look after the matter when such a man has taken hold of it.’ And here I am. Oh! I might kill myself.”
“It is all the more fortunate,” replied M. Daubigeon, “that yesterday the case was hanging on a thread.”
The magistrate gnashed his teeth, and replied,—
“Yes, on a thread, thanks to M. Domini! whose weakness I cannot comprehend, and who did not know at all, or who was not willing to know, how to make the most of the evidence. But it was M. Gransiere’s fault quite as much. What had he to do with politics to drag them into the affair? And whom did he want to hit? No one else but M. Magloire, the man whom everybody respects in the whole district, and who had three warm personal friends among the jurymen. I foresaw it, and I told him where he would get into trouble. But there are people who will not listen. M. Gransiere wants to be elected himself. It is a fancy, a monomania of our day: everybody wants to be a deputy. I wish Heaven would confound all ambitious men!”
For the first time in his life, and no doubt for the last time also, the commonwealth attorney rejoiced at the misfortune of others. Taking savage pleasure in turning the dagger in his poor friend’s wounds, he said,—
“No doubt M. Folgat’s speech had something to do with it.”
“Nothing at all.”
“He was brilliantly successful.”
“He took them by surprise. It was nothing but a big voice, and grand, rolling sentences.”
“But still”—
“And what did he say, after all? That the prosecution did not know the real secret of the case. That is absurd!”
“The new judges may not think so, however.”
“We shall see.”
“This time M. de Boiscoran’s defence will be very different. He will spare nobody. He is down now, and cannot fall any lower.”
“That may be. But he also risks having a less indulgent jury, and not getting off with twenty years.”
“What do his counsel say?”
“I do not know. But I have just sent my clerk to find out; and, if you choose to wait”—
M. Daubigeon did wait, and he did well; for M. Mechinet came in very soon after, with a long face for the world, but inwardly delighted.
“Well?” asked M. Galpin eagerly.
He shook his head, and said in a melancholy tone of voice,—
“I have never seen any thing like this. How fickle public opinion is, after all! Day before yesterday M. de Boiscoran could not have passed through the town without being mobbed. If he should show himself to-day, they would carry him in triumph. He has been condemned, and now he is a martyr. It is known already that the sentence is void, and they are delighted. My sisters have just told me that the ladies in good society propose to give to the Marchioness de Boiscoran and to Miss Chandore some public evidence of their sympathy. The members of the bar will give M. Folgat a public dinner.”
“Why that is monstrous!” cried M. Galpin.
“Well,” said M. Daubigeon, “‘the opinions of men are more fickle and changeable than the waves of the sea.’”
But, interrupting the quotation, M. Galpin asked his clerk,—
“Well, what else?”
“I went to hand M. Gransiere the letter which you gave me for him”—
“What did he say?”
“I found him in consultation with the president, M. Domini. He took the letter, glanced at it rapidly, and told me in his most icy tone, ‘Very well!’ To tell the truth, I thought, that, in spite of his stiff and grand air, he was in reality furious.”
The magistrate looked utterly in despair.
“I can’t stand it,” he said sighing. “These men whose veins have no blood in them, but poison, never forgive.”
“Day before yesterday you thought very highly of him.”
“Day before yesterday he did not look upon me as the cause of a great misfortune for him.”
M. Mechinet went on quite eagerly,—
“After leaving M. Gransiere, I went to the court-house, and there I head the great piece of news which has set all the town agog. Count Claudieuse is dead.”
M. Daubigeon and M. Galpin looked at each other, and exclaimed in the same breath,—
“Great God! Is that so?”
“He breathed his last this morning, at two or three minutes before six o’clock. I saw his body in the private room of the attorney-general. The priest from Brechy was there, and two other priests from his parish. They were waiting for a bier to have him carried to his house.”
“Poor man!” murmured M. Daubigeon.
“But I heard a great deal more,” Mechinet said, “from the watchman who was on guard last night. He told me that when the trial was over, and it became known that Count Claudieuse was likely to die, the priest from Brechy came there, and asked to be allowed to offer him the last consolations of his church. The countess refused to let him come to the bedside of her husband. The watchman was amazed at this; and just then Miss Chandore suddenly appeared, and sent word to the countess that she wanted to speak to her.”
“Is it possible?”
“Quite certain. They remained together for more than a quarter of an hour. What did they say? The watchman told me he was dying with curiosity to know; but he could hear nothing, because there was the priest from Brechy, all the while, kneeling before the door, and praying. When they parted, they looked terribly excited. Then the countess immediately called in the priest, and he stayed with the count till he died.”
M. Daubigeon and M. Galpin had not yet recovered from their amazement at this account, when somebody knocked timidly at the door.
“Come in!” cried Mechinet.
The door opened, and the sergeant of gendarmes appeared.
“I have been sent here by the attorney-general,” he said; “and the servant told me you were up here. We have just caught Trumence.”
“That man who had escaped from jail?”
“Yes. We were about to carry him back there, when he told us that he had a secret to reveal, a very important, urgent secret, concerning the condemned prisoner, Boiscoran.”
“Trumence?”
“Yes. Then we carried him to the court-house, and I came for orders.”
“Run and say that I am coming to see him!” cried M. Daubigeon. “Make haste! I am coming after you.”
But the gendarme, a model of obedience, had not waited so long: he was already down stairs.
“I must leave you, Galpin,” said M. Daubigeon, very much excited. “You heard what the man said. We must know what that means at once.”
But the magistrate was not less excited.
“You permit me to accompany you, I hope?” he asked.
He had a right to do so.
“Certainly,” replied the commonwealth attorney. “But make haste!”
The recommendation was not needed. M. Galpin had already put on his boots. He now slipped his overcoat over his home dress, as he was; and off they went.
Mechinet followed the two gentlemen as they hastened down the street; and the good people of Sauveterre, always on the lookout, were not a little scandalized at seeing their well-known magistrate, M. Galpin, in his home costume,—he who generally was most scrupulously precise in his dress.
Standing on their door-steps, they said to each other,—
“Something very important must have happened. Just look at these gentlemen!”
The fact was, they were walking so fast, that people might well wonder; and they did not say a word all the way.
But, ere they reached the court-house, they were forced to stop; for some four or five hundred people were filling the court, crowding on the steps, and actually pressing against the doors.
Immediately all became silent; hats were raised; the crowd parted; and a passage was opened.
On the porch appeared the priest from Brechy, and two other priests.
Behind them came attendants from the hospital, who bore a bier covered with black cloth; and beneath the cloth the outlines of a human body could be seen.
The women began to cry; and those who had room enough knelt down.
“Poor countess!” murmured one of them. “Here is her husband dead, and they say one of her daughters is dying at home.”
But M. Daubigeon, the magistrate, and Mechinet were too preoccupied with their own interests to think of stopping for more reliable news. The way was open: they went in, and hastened to the clerk’s office, where the gendarmes had taken Trumence, and now were guarding him.
He rose as soon as he recognized the gentlemen, and respectfully took off his cap. It was really Trumence; but the good-for-nothing vagrant did not present his usual careless appearance. He looked pale, and was evidently very much excited.
“Well,” said M. Daubigeon, “so you have allowed yourself to be retaken?”
“Beg pardon, judge,” replied the poor fellow, “I was not retaken. I came of my own accord.”
“Involuntarily, you mean?”
“Quite by my own free will! Just ask the sergeant.”
The sergeant stepped forward, touched his cap, and reported,—
“That is the naked truth. Trumence came himself to our barrack, and said, ‘I surrender as a prisoner. I wish to speak to the commonwealth attorney, and give importance evidence.’”
The vagabond drew himself up proudly,—
“You see, sir, that I did not lie. While these gentlemen were galloping all over the country in search of me, I was snugly ensconced in a garret at the Red Lamb, and did not think of coming out from there till I should be entirely forgotten.”
“Yes; but people who lodge at the Red Lamb have to pay, and you had no money.”
Trumence very quietly drew from his pocket a handful of Napoleons, and of five-and-twenty-franc notes, and showed them.
“You see that I had the wherewithal to pay for my room,” he said. “But I surrendered, because, after all, I am an honest man, and I would rather suffer some trouble myself than see an innocent gentleman go to the galleys.”
“M. de Boiscoran?”
“Yes. He is innocent! I know it; I am sure of it; and I can prove it. And, if he will not tell, I will tell,—tell every thing!”
M. Daubigeon and M. Galpin were utterly astounded.
“Explain yourself,” they both said in the same breath.
But the vagrant shook his head, pointing at the gendarmes; and, as a man who is quite cognizant of all the formalities of the law, he replied,—
“But it is a great secret; and, when one confesses, one does not like anybody else to hear it but the priest. Besides, I should like my deposition to be taken down in writing.”
Upon a sign made by M. Galpin, the gendarmes withdrew; and Mechinet took his seat at a table, with a blank sheet of paper before him.
“Now we can talk,” said Trumence: “that’s the way I like it. I was not thinking myself of running away. I was pretty well off in jail; winter is coming, I had not a cent; and I knew, that, if I were retaken, I should fare rather badly. But M. Jacques de Boiscoran had a notion to spend a night outside.”
“Mind what you are saying,” M. Galpin broke in severely. “You cannot play with the law, and go off unpunished.”
“May I die if I do not tell the truth!” cried Trumence. “M. Jacques has spent a whole night out of jail.”
The magistrate trembled.
“What a story that is!” he said again.
“I have my proof,” replied Trumence coldly, “and you shall hear. Well, as he wanted to leave, M. Jacques came to me, and we agreed, that in consideration of a certain sum of money which he has paid me, and of which you have seen just now all that is left, I should make a hole in the wall, and that I should run off altogether, while he was to come back when he had done his business.”
“And the jailer?” asked M. Daubigeon.
Like a true peasant of his promise, Trumence was far too cunning to expose Blangin unnecessarily. Assuming, therefore, the whole responsibility of the evasion, he replied,—
“The jailer saw nothing. We had no use for him. Was not I, so to say, under-jailer? Had not I been charged by you yourself, M. Galpin, with keeping watch over M. Jacques? Was it not I who opened and locked his door, who took him to the parlor, and brought him back again?”
That was the exact truth.
“Go on!” said M. Galpin harshly.
“Well,” said Trumence, “every thing was done as agreed upon. One evening, about nine o’clock, I make my hole in the wall, and here we are, M. Jacques and I, on the ramparts. There he slips a package of banknotes into my hand, and tells me to run for it, while he goes about his business. I thought he was innocent then; but you see I should not exactly have gone through the fire for him as yet. I said to myself, that perhaps he was making fun of me, and that, once on the wing, he would not be such a fool as to go back into the cage. This made me curious, as he was going off, to see which way he was going,—and there I was, following him close upon his heels!”
The magistrate and the commonwealth attorney, accustomed as they both were, by the nature of their profession, to conceal their feelings, could hardly restrain now,—one, the hope trembling within him, and the other, the vague apprehensions which began to fill his heart.
Mechinet, who knew already all that was coming, laughed in his sleeve while his pen was flying rapidly over the paper.
“He was afraid he might be recognized,” continued the vagrant, “and so M. Jacques had been running ever so fast, keeping close to the wall, and choosing the narrowest lanes. Fortunately, I have a pair of very good legs. He goes through Sauveterre like a race-horse; and, when he reaches Mautrec Street, he begins to ring the bell at a large gate.”
“At Count Claudieuse’s house!”
“I know now what house it was; but I did not know then. Well, he rings. A servant comes and opens. He speaks to her, and immediately she invites him in, and that so eagerly, that she forgets to close the gate again.”
M. Daubigeon stopped him by a gesture.
“Wait!” he said.
And, taking up a blank form, he filled it up, rang the bell, and said to an usher of the court who had hastened in, giving him the printed paper,—
“I want this to be taken immediately. Make haste; and not a word!”
Then Trumence was directed to go on; and he said,—
“There I was, standing in the middle of the street, feeling like a fool. I thought I had nothing left me but to go and use my legs: that was safest for me. But that wretched, half-open gate attracted me. I said to myself, ‘If you go in, and they catch you, they will think you have come to steal, and you’ll have to pay for it.’ That was true; but the temptation was too strong for me. My curiosity broke my heart, so to say, and, ‘Come what may, I’ll risk it,’ I said. I push the huge gate just wide enough to let me in, and here I am in a large garden. It was pitch dark; but, quite at the bottom of the garden, three windows in the lower story of the house were lighted up. I had ventured too far now to go back. So I went on, creeping along stealthily, until I reached a tree, against which I pressed closely, about the length of my arm from one of the windows, which belonged to a beautiful parlor. I look—and I see whom? M. de Boiscoran. As there were no curtains to the windows, I could see as well as I can see you. His face looked terrible. I was asking myself for whom he could be waiting there, when I saw him hiding behind the open door of the room, like a man who is lying in wait for somebody, with evil intentions. This troubled me very much; but the next moment a lady came in. Instantly M. Jacques shuts the door behind her; the lady turns round, sees him, and wants to run, uttering at the same time a loud cry. That lady was the Countess Claudieuse!”
He looked as if he wished to pause to watch the effect of his revelation. But Mechinet was so impatient, that he forgot the modest character of his duty, and said hastily,—
“Go on; go on!”
“One of the windows was half open,” continued the vagrant, “and thus I could hear almost as well as I saw. I crouched down on all-fours and kept my head on a level with the ground, so as not to lose a word. Oh, it was fearful! At the first word I understood it all: M. Jacques and the Countess Claudieuse had been lovers.”
“This is madness!” cried M. Galpin.
“Well, I tell you I was amazed. The Countess Claudieuse—such a pious lady! But I have ears; don’t you think I have? M. Jacques reminded her of the night of the crime, how they had been together a few minutes before the fire broke out, as they had agreed some days before to meet near Valpinson at that very time. At this meeting they had burnt their love-letters, and M. Jacques had blackened his fingers badly in burning them.”
“Did you really hear that?” asked M. Daubigeon.
“As I hear you, sir.”
“Write it down, Mechinet,” said the commonwealth attorney with great eagerness,—“write that down carefully.”
The clerk was sure to do it.
“What surprised me most,” continued Trumence, “was, that the countess seemed to consider M. Jacques guilty, and he thought she was. Each accused the other of the crime. She said, ‘You attempted the life of my husband, because you were afraid of him!’ And he said, ‘You wanted to kill him, so as to be free, and to prevent my marriage!’”
M. Galpin had sunk into a chair: he stammered,—
“Did anybody ever hear such a thing?”
“However, they explained; and at last they found out that they were both of them innocent. Then M. Jacques entreated the countess to save him; and she replied that she would certainly not save him at the expense of her reputation, and so enable him, as soon as he was free once more, to marry Miss Chandore. Then he said to her, ‘Well, then I must tell all;’ and she, ‘You will not be believed. I shall deny it all, and you have no proof!’ In his despair, he reproached her bitterly, and said she had never loved him at all. Then she swore she loved him more than ever; and that, as he was free now, she was ready to abandon every thing, and to escape with him to some foreign country. And she conjured him to flee, in a voice which moved my heart, with loving words such as I have never heard before in my life, and with looks which seemed to be burning fire. What a woman! I did not think he could possibly resist. And yet he did resist; and, perfectly beside himself with anger, he cried, ‘Rather the galleys!’ Then she laughed, mocking him, and saying, ‘Very well, you shall go to the galleys!’”
Although Trumence entered into many details, it was quite evident that he kept back many things.
Still M. Daubigeon did not dare question him, for fear of breaking the thread of his account.
“But that was nothing at all,” said the vagrant. “While M. Jacques and the countess were quarrelling in this way, I saw the door of the parlor suddenly open as if by itself, and a phantom appear in it, dressed in a funeral pall. It was Count Claudieuse himself. His face looked terrible; and he had a revolver in his hand. He was leaning against the side of the door; and he listened while his wife and M. Jacques were talking of their former love-affairs. At certain words, he would raise his pistol as if to fire; then he would lower it again, and go on listening. It was so awful, I had not a dry thread on my body. It was very hard not to cry out to M. Jacques and the countess, ‘You poor people, don’t you see that the count is there?’ But they saw nothing; for they were both beside themselves with rage and despair: and at last M. Jacques actually raised his hand to strike the countess. ‘Do not strike that woman!’ suddenly said the count. They turn round; they see him, and utter a fearful cry. The countess fell on a chair as if she were dead. I was thunderstruck. I never in my life saw a man behave so beautifully as M. Jacques did at that moment. Instead of trying to escape, he opened his coat, and baring his breast, he said to the husband, ‘Fire! You are in your right!’ The count, however, laughed contemptuously, and said, ‘The court will avenge me!’—‘You know very well that I am innocent.’—‘All the better.’—‘It would be infamous to let me be condemned.’—‘I shall do more than that. To make your condemnation sure, I shall say that I recognized you.’ The count was going to step forward, as he said this; but he was dying. Great God, what a man! He fell forward, lying at full-length on the floor. Then I got frightened, and ran away.”
By a very great effort only could the commonwealth attorney control his intense excitement. His voice, however, betrayed him as he asked Trumence, after a solemn pause,—
“Why did you not come and tell us all that at once?”
The vagabond shook his head, and said,—
“I meant to do so; but I was afraid. You ought to understand what I mean. I was afraid I might be punished very severely for having run off.”
“Your silence has led the court to commit a grievous mistake.”
“I had no idea M. Jacques would be found guilty. Big people like him, who can pay great lawyers, always get out of trouble. Besides, I did not think Count Claudieuse would carry out his threat. To be betrayed by one’s wife is hard; but to send an innocent man to the galleys”—
“Still you see”—
“Ah, if I could have foreseen! My intentions were good; and I assure you, although I did not come at once to denounce the whole thing, I was firmly resolved to make a clean breast of it if M. Jacques should get into trouble. And the proof of it is, that instead of running off, and going far away, I very quietly lay concealed at the Red Lamb, waiting for the sentence to be published. As soon as I heard what was done last night, I did not lose an hour, and surrendered at once to the gendarmes.”
In the meantime, M. Galpin had overcome his first amazement, and now broke out furiously,—
“This man is an impostor. The money he showed us was paid him to bear false witness. How can we credit his story?”
“We must investigate the matter,” replied M. Daubigeon. He rang the bell; and, when the usher came in, he asked,—
“Have you done what I told you?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the man. “M. de Boiscoran and the servant of Count Claudieuse are here.”
“Bring in the woman: when I ring, show M. de Boiscoran in.”
This woman was a big country-girl, plain of face, and square of figure. She seemed to be very much excited, and looked crimson in her face.
“Do you remember,” asked M. Daubigeon, “that one night last week a man came to your house, and asked to see your mistress?”
“Oh, yes!” replied the honest girl. “I did not want to let him in at first; but he said he came from the court, and then I let him in.”
“Would you recognize him?”
“Certainly.”
The commonwealth attorney rang again; the door opened, and Jacques came in, his face full of amazement and wonder.
“That is the man!” cried the servant.
“May I know?” asked the unfortunate man.
“Not yet!” replied M. Daubigeon. “Go back, and be of good hope!”
But Jacques remained standing where he was, like a man who has suddenly been overcome, looking all around with amazed eyes, and evidently unable to comprehend.
How could he have comprehended what was going on?
They had taken him out of his cell without warning; they had carried him to the court-house; and here he was confronted with Trumence, whom he thought he should never see again, and with the servant of the Countess Claudieuse.
M. Galpin looked the picture of consternation; and M. Daubigeon, radiant with delight, bade him be of good hope.
Hopeful of what? How? To what purpose?
And Mechinet made him all kinds of signs.
The usher who had brought him in had actually to take him out.
Immediately the commonwealth attorney turned again to the servant-girl and said,—
“Now, my good girl, can you tell me if any thing special happened in connection with this gentleman’s visit at your house?”
“There was a great quarrel between him and master and mistress.”
“Were you present?”
“No. But I am quite certain of what I say.”
“How so?”
“Well, I will tell you. When I went up stairs to tell the countess that there was a gentleman below who came from the courts, she was in a great hurry to go down, and told me to stay with the count, my master. Of course, I did what she said. But no sooner was she down than I heard a loud cry. Master, who had looked all in a stupor, heard it too: he raised himself on his pillow, and asked me where my mistress was. I told him, and he was just settling down to try and fall asleep again, when the sound of loud voices came up to us. ‘That is very singular,’ said master. I offered to go down and see what was the matter: but he told me sharply not to stir an inch. And, when the voices became louder and louder, he said, ‘I will go down myself. Give me my dressing-gown.’
“Sick as he was, exhausted, and almost on his deathbed, it was very imprudent in him, and might easily have cost him his life. I ventured to speak to him; but he swore at me, and told me to hush, and to do what he ordered me to do.
“The count—God be merciful to his soul!—was a very good man, certainly; but he was a terrible man also, and when he got angry, and talked in a certain way, everybody in the house began to tremble, even mistress.
“I obeyed, therefore, and did what he wanted. Poor man! He was so weak he could hardly stand up, and had to hold on to a chair while I helped him just to hang his dressing-gown over his shoulders.
“Then I asked him if he would not let me help him down. But looking at me with awful eyes, he said, ‘You will do me the favor to stay here, and, whatever may happen, if you dare so much as open the door while I am away, you shall not stay another hour in my service.’
“Then he went out, holding on to the wall; and I remained alone in the chamber, all trembling, and feeling as sick as if I had known that a great misfortune was coming upon us.
“However, I heard nothing more for a time; and as the minutes passed away, I was just beginning to reproach myself for having been so foolishly alarmed, when I heard two cries; but, O sir! two such fearful, sharp cries, that I felt cold shivers running all over me.
“As I did not dare leave the room, I put my ear to the door, and I heard distinctly the count’s voice, as he was quarrelling with another gentleman. But I could not catch a single word, and only made out that they were angry about a very serious matter.
“All of a sudden, a great but dull noise, like that of the fall of a heavy body, then another awful cry, I had not a drop of blood left in my veins at that moment.
“Fortunately, the other servants, who had gone to bed, had heard something. They had gotten up, and were now coming down the passage.
“I left the room at all hazards, and went down stairs with the others, and there we found my mistress fainting in an armchair, and my master stretched out at full-length, lying on the floor like a dead man.”
“What did I say?” cried Trumence.
But the commonwealth attorney made him a sign to keep quiet; and, turning again to the girl, he asked,—
“And the visitor?”
“He was gone, sir. He had vanished.”
“What did you do then?”
“We raised up the count: we carried him up stairs and laid him on his bed. Then we brought mistress round again; and the valet went in haste to fetch Dr. Seignebos.”
“What said the countess when she recovered her consciousness?”
“Nothing. Mistress looked like a person who has been knocked in the head.”
“Was there any thing else?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
“What?”
“The oldest of the young ladies, Miss Martha, was seized with terrible convulsions.”
“How was that?”
“Why, I only know what miss told us herself.”
“Let us hear what she said.”
“Ah! It is a very singular story. When this gentleman whom I have just seen here rang the bell at our gate, Miss Martha, who had already gone to bed, got up again, and went to the window to see who it was. She saw me go and open, with a candle in my hand, and come back again with the gentleman behind me. She was just going to bed again, when she thought she saw one of the statues in the garden move, and walk right off. We told her it could not be so; but she did not mind us. She told us over and over again that she was quite sure that she saw that statue come up the avenue, and take a place behind the tree which is nearest to the parlor-window.”
Trumence looked triumphant.
“That was I!” he cried.
The girl looked at him, and said, only moderately surprised,—
“That may very well be.”
“What do you know about it?” asked M. Daubigeon.
“I know it must have been a man who had stolen into the garden, and who had frightened Miss Martha so terribly, because Dr. Seignebos dropped, in going out, a five-franc piece just at the foot of that tree, where miss said she had seen the man standing. The valet who showed the doctor out helped him look for his money; and, as they sought with the candle, they saw the footprints of a man who wore iron-shod shoes.”
“The marks of my shoes!” broke in Trumence again; and sitting down, and raising his legs, he said to the magistrate,—
“Just look at my shoes, and you will see there is no lack of iron nails!”
But there was no need for such evidence; and he was told,—
“Never mind that! We believe you.”
“And you, my good girl,” said M. Daubigeon again, “can you tell us, if, after these occurrences, Count Claudieuse had any explanation with your mistress?”
“No, I do not know. Only I saw that the count and the countess were no longer as they used to be with each other.”
That was all she knew. She was asked to sign her deposition; and then M. Daubigeon told her she might go.
Then, turning to Trumence, he said,—
“You will be taken to jail now. But you are an honest man, and you need not give yourself any trouble. Go now.”
The magistrate and the commonwealth attorney remained alone now, since, of course, a clerk counts for nothing.
“Well,” said M. Daubigeon, “what do you think of that?”
M. Galpin was dumfounded.
“It is enough to make one mad,” he murmured.