I had hoped to lie some days in prison before being brought to
trial, and that during those days Castelroux might have succeeded in
discovering those who could witness to my identity. Conceive, therefore,
something of my dismay when on the morrow I was summoned an hour before
noon to go present myself to my judges.
From the prison to the Palace I was taken in chains like any thief--for
the law demanded this indignity to be borne by one charged with the
crimes they imputed to me. The distance was but short, yet I found it
over-long, which is not wonderful considering that the people stopped
to line up as I went by and to cast upon me a shower of opprobrious
derision--for Toulouse was a very faithful and loyal city. It was within
some two hundred yards of the Palace steps that I suddenly beheld a face
in the crowd, at the sight of which I stood still in my amazement. This
earned me a stab in the back from the butt-end of the pike of one of my
guards.
“What ails you now?” quoth the man irritably. “Forward, Monsieur le
traite!”
I moved on, scarce remarking the fellow's roughness; my eyes were
still upon that face--the white, piteous face of Roxalanne. I smiled
reassurance and encouragement, but even as I smiled the horror in her
countenance seemed to increase. Then, as I passed on, she vanished from
my sight, and I was left to conjecture the motives that had occasioned
her return to Toulouse. Had the message that Marsac would yesterday have
conveyed to her caused her to retrace her steps that she might be near
me in my extremity; or had some weightier reason influenced her return?
Did she hope to undo some of the evil she had done? Alas, poor child! If
such were her hopes, I sorely feared me they would prove very idle.
Of my trial I should say but little did not the exigencies of my story
render it necessary to say much. Even now, across the gap of years, my
gorge rises at the mockery which, in the King's name, those gentlemen
made of justice. I can allow for the troubled conditions of the times,
and I can realize how in cases of civil disturbances and rebellion
it may be expedient to deal summarily with traitors, yet not all the
allowances that I can think of would suffice to condone the methods of
that tribunal.
The trial was conducted in private by the Keeper of the Seals--a
lean, wizened individual, with an air as musty and dry as that of the
parchments among which he had spent his days. He was supported by
six judges, and on his right sat the King's Commissioner, Monsieur
de Chatellerault--the bruised condition of whose countenance still
advertised the fact that we had met but yesterday.
Upon being asked my name and place of abode, I created some commotion
by answering boldly “I am the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis of
Bardelys, of Bardelys in Picardy.”
The President--that is to say, the Keeper of the Seals--turned
inquiringly to Chatellerault. The Count, however, did no more than
smile and point to something written on a paper that lay spread upon the
table. The President nodded.
“Monsieur Rene de Lesperon,” said he, “the Court may perhaps not be able
to discriminate whether this statement of yours is a deliberate attempt
to misguide or frustrate the ends of justice, or whether, either in
consequence of your wounds or as a visitation of God for your treason,
you are the victim of a deplorable hallucination. But the Court wishes
you to understand that it is satisfied of your identity. The papers
found upon your person at the time of your arrest, besides other
evidence in our power, remove all possibility of doubt in that
connection. Therefore, in your own interests, we implore you to abandon
these false statements, if so be that you are master of your wits. Your
only hope of saving your head must lie in your truthfully answering our
questions, and even then, Monsieur de Lesperon, the hope that we hold
out to you is so slight as to be no hope at all.”
There was a pause, during which the other judges nodded their heads in
sage approval of their President's words. For myself, I kept silent,
perceiving how little it could avail me to continue to protest, and
awaited his next question.
“You were arrested, monsieur, at the Chateau de Lavedan two nights ago
by a company of dragoons under the command of Captain de Castelroux. Is
that so?”
“It is so, monsieur.”
“And at the time of your arrest, upon being apprehended as Rene de
Lesperon, you offered no repudiation of the identity; on the contrary,
when Monsieur de Castelroux called for Monsieur de Lesperon, you stepped
forward and acknowledged that you were he.”
“Pardon, monsieur. What I acknowledged was that I was known by that
name.”
The President chuckled evilly, and his satellites smiled in polite
reflection of his mood.
“This acute differentiating is peculiar, Monsieur de Lesperon, to
persons of unsound mental condition,” said he. “I am afraid that it will
serve little purpose. A man is generally known by his name, is he not?”
I did not answer him. “Shall we call Monsieur de Castelroux to confirm
what I have said?”
“It is not necessary. Since you allow that I may have said I was known
by the name, but refuse to recognize the distinction between that and
a statement that 'Lesperon' is my name, it would serve no purpose to
summon the Captain.”
The President nodded, and with that the point was dismissed, and he
proceeded as calmly as though there never had been any question of my
identity.
“You are charged, Monsieur de Lesperon, with high treason in its most
virulent and malignant form. You are accused of having borne arms
against His Majesty. Have you anything to say?”
“I have to say that it is false, monsieur; that His Majesty has no more
faithful or loving subject than am I.”
The President shrugged his shoulders, and a shade of annoyance crossed
his face.
“If you are come here for no other purpose than to deny the statements
that I make, I am afraid that we are but wasting time,” he cried
testily. “If you desire it, I can summon Monsieur de Castelroux to swear
that at the time of your arrest and upon being charged with the crime
you made no repudiation of that charge.”
“Naturally not, monsieur,” I cried, somewhat heated by this seemingly
studied ignoring of important facts, “because I realized that it was
Monsieur de Castelroux's mission to arrest and not to judge me. Monsieur
de Castelroux was an officer, not a Tribunal, and to have denied this or
that to him would have been so much waste of breath.”
“Ah! Very nimble; very nimble, in truth, Monsieur de Lesperon, but
scarcely convincing. We will proceed. You are charged with having taken
part in several of the skirmishes against the armies of Marshals
de Schomberg and La Force, and finally, with having been in close
attendance upon Monsieur de Montmorency at the battle of Castelnaudary.
What have you to say?”
“That it is utterly untrue.”
“Yet your name, monsieur, is on a list found among the papers in the
captured baggage of Monsieur le Duc de Montmorency.”
“No, monsieur,” I denied stoutly, “it is not.”
The President smote the table a blow that scattered a flight of papers.
“Par la mort Dieu!” he roared, with a most indecent exhibition of temper
in one so placed. “I have had enough of your contradictions. You forget,
monsieur, your position--”
“At least,” I broke in harshly, “no less than you forget yours.”
The Keeper of the Seals gasped for breath at that, and his fellow
judges murmured angrily amongst themselves. Chatellerault maintained his
sardonic smile, but permitted himself to utter no word.
“I would, gentlemen,” I cried, addressing them all, “that His Majesty
were here to see how you conduct your trials and defile his Courts. As
for you, Monsieur le President, you violate the sanctity of your office
in giving way to anger; it is a thing unpardonable in a judge. I have
told you in plain terms, gentlemen, that I am not this Rene de Lesperon
with whose crimes you charge me. Yet, in spite of my denials, ignoring
them, or setting them down either to a futile attempt at defence or to
an hallucination of which you suppose me the victim, you proceed to lay
those crimes to my charge, and when I deny your charges you speak of
proofs that can only apply to another.
“How shall the name of Lesperon having been found among the Duke of
Montmorency's papers convict me of treason, since I tell you that I am
not Lesperon? Had you the slightest, the remotest sense of your high
duty, messieurs, you would ask me rather to explain how, if what I
state be true, I come to be confounded with Lesperon and arrested in
his place. Then, messieurs, you might seek to test the accuracy of what
statements I may make; but to proceed as you are proceeding is not to
judge but to murder. Justice is represented as a virtuous woman with
bandaged eyes, holding impartial scales; in your hands, gentlemen, by my
soul, she is become a very harlot clutching a veil.”
Chatellerault's cynical smile grew broader as my speech proceeded and
stirred up the rancour in the hearts of those august gentlemen. The
Keeper of the Seals went white and red by turns, and when I paused there
was an impressive silence that lasted for some moments. At last the
President leant over to confer in a whisper with Chatellerault. Then,
in a voice forcedly calm--like the calm of Nature when thunder is
brewing--he asked me, “Who do you insist that you are, monsieur?”
“Once already have I told you, and I venture to think that mine is a
name not easily forgotten. I am the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis
of Bardelys, of Bardelys in Picardy.”
A cunning grin parted his thin lips.
“Have you any witnesses to identify you?”
“Hundreds, monsieur!” I answered eagerly, seeing salvation already
within my grasp.
“Name some of them.”
“I will name one--one whose word you will not dare to doubt.”
“That is?”
“His Majesty the King. I am told that he is on his way to Toulouse, and
I but ask, messieurs, that you await his arrival before going further
with my trial.”
“Is there no other witness of whom you can think, monsieur? Some witness
that might be produced more readily. For if you can, indeed, establish
the identity you claim, why should you languish in prison for some
weeks?”
His voice was soft and oily. The anger had all departed out of it, which
I--like a fool--imagined to be due to my mention of the King.
“My friends, Monsieur le Garde des Sceaux, are all either in Paris or in
His Majesty's train, and so not likely to be here before him. There
is my intendant, Rodenard, and there are my servants--some twenty
of them--who may perhaps be still in Languedoc, and for whom I would
entreat you to seek. Them you might succeed in finding within a few days
if they have not yet determined to return to Paris in the belief that I
am dead.”
He stroked his chin meditatively, his eyes raised to the sunlit dome of
glass overhead.
“Ah-h!” he gasped. It was a long-drawn sigh of regret, of conclusion, or
of weary impatience. “There is no one in Toulouse who will swear to your
identity monsieur?” he asked.
“I am afraid there is not,” I replied. “I know of no one.”
As I uttered those words the President's countenance changed as abruptly
as if he had flung off a mask. From soft and cat-like that he had been
during the past few moments, he grew of a sudden savage as a tiger. He
leapt to his feet, his face crimson, his eyes seeming to blaze, and
the words he spoke came now in a hot, confused, and almost incoherent
torrent.
“Miserable!” he roared, “out of your own mouth have you convicted
yourself. And to think that you should have stood there and wasted the
time of this Court--His Majesty's time--with your damnable falsehoods!
What purpose did you think to serve by delaying your doom? Did you
imagine that haply, whilst we sent to Paris for your witnesses, the
King might grow weary of justice, and in some fit of clemency announce a
general pardon? Such things have been known, and it may be that in your
cunning you played for such a gain based upon such a hope. But justice,
fool, is not to be cozened. Had you, indeed, been Bardelys, you had seen
that here in this court sits a gentleman who is very intimate with him.
He is there, monsieur; that is Monsieur le Comte de Chatellerault, of
whom perhaps you may have heard. Yet, when I ask you whether in Toulouse
there is any one who can bear witness to your identity, you answer me
that you know of no one. I will waste no more time with you, I promise
you.”
He flung himself back into his chair like a man exhausted, and mopped
his brow with a great kerchief which he had drawn from his robes. His
fellow judges laid their heads together, and with smiles and nods, winks
and leers, they discussed and admired the miraculous subtlety and acumen
of this Solomon. Chatellerault sat, calmly smiling, in solemn mockery.
For a spell I was too thunderstruck to speak, aghast at this
catastrophe. Like a fool, indeed, I had tumbled into the pit that had
been dug for me by Chatellerault for I never doubted that it was of his
contriving. At last, “My masters,” said I, “these conclusions may
appear to you most plausible, but, believe me, they are fallacious. I am
perfectly acquainted with Monsieur de Chatellerault, and he with me,
and if he were to speak the truth and play the man and the gentleman
for once, he would tell you that I am, indeed, Bardelys. But Monsieur le
Comte has ends of his own to serve in sending me to my doom. It is in a
sense through his agency that I am at present in this position, and that
I have been confounded with Lesperon. What, then, could it have availed
me to have made appeal to him? And yet, Monsieur le President, he was
born a gentleman, and he may still retain some notion of honour. Ask
him, sir--ask him point-blank, whether I am or not Marcel de Bardelys.”
The firmness of my tones created some impression upon those feeble
minds. Indeed, the President went so far as to turn an interrogative
glance upon the Count. But Chatellerault, supremely master of the
situation, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled a pitying, long-suffering
smile.
“Must I really answer such a question, Monsieur le President?” he
inquired in a voice and with a manner that clearly implied how low would
be his estimate of the President's intelligence if he were, indeed,
constrained to do so.
“But no, Monsieur le Comte,” replied the President with sudden haste,
and in scornful rejection of the idea. “There is no necessity that you
should answer.”
“But the question, Monsieur le President!” I thundered, my hand
outstretched towards Chatellerault. “Ask him--if you have any sense of
your duty--ask him am I not Marcel de Bardelys.”
“Silence!” blazed the President back at me. “You shall not fool us any
longer, you nimble-witted liar!”
My head drooped. This coward had, indeed, shattered my last hope.
“Some day, monsieur,” I said very quietly, “I promise you that your
behaviour and these gratuitous insults shall cost you your position.
Pray God they do not cost you also your head!”
My words they treated as one might treat the threats of a child. That
I should have had the temerity to utter them did but serve finally to
decide my doom, if, indeed, anything had been wanting.
With many epithets of opprobrium, such as are applied to malefactors
of the lowest degree, they passed sentence of death upon me, and with
drooping spirits, giving myself up for lost and assured that I should
be led to the block before many hours were sped, I permitted them to
reconduct me through the streets of Toulouse to my prison.
I could entertain you at length upon my sensations as I walked between
my guards, a man on the threshold of eternity, with hundreds of men and
women gaping at me--men and women who would live for years to gape upon
many another wretch in my position. The sun shone with a brilliance that
to such eyes as mine was a very mockery. Thus would it shine on through
centuries, and light many another unfortunate to the scaffold. The very
sky seemed pitiless in the intensity of its cobalt. Unfeeling I deemed
the note that everywhere was struck by man and Nature, so discordant was
it with my gloomy outlook. If you would have food for reflection upon
the evanescent quality of life, upon the nothingness of man, upon
the empty, heartless egoism implicit in human nature, get yourselves
sentenced to death, and then look around you. With such a force was all
this borne in upon me, and with such sufficiency, that after the first
pang was spent I went near to rejoicing that things were as they were,
and that I was to die, haply before sunset. It was become such a world
as did not seem worth a man's while to live in: a world of vainness, of
hollowness, of meanness, of nothing but illusions. The knowledge that I
was about to die, that I was about to quit all this, seemed to have
torn some veil from my eyes, and to have permitted me to recognize the
worthless quality of what I left. Well may it be that such are but the
thoughts of a man's dying moments, whispered into his soul by a merciful
God to predispose him for the wrench and agony of his passing.
I had been a half-hour in my cell when the door was opened to admit
Castelroux, whom I had not seen since the night before. He came to
condole with me in my extremity, and yet to bid me not utterly lose
hope.
“It is too late to-day to carry out the sentence,” said he, “and as
to-morrow will be Sunday, you will have until the day after. By then
much may betide, monsieur. My agents are everywhere scouring the
province for your servants, and let us pray Heaven that they may succeed
in their search.”
“It is a forlorn hope, Monsieur de Castelroux,” I sighed, “and I will
pin no faith to it lest I suffer a disappointment that will embitter my
last moments, and perhaps rob me of some of the fortitude I shall have
need of.”
He answered me, nevertheless, with words of encouragement. No effort was
being spared, and if Rodenard and my men were still in Languedoc then
was every likelihood that they would be brought to Toulouse in time.
Then he added that that, however, was not the sole object of his visit.
A lady had obtained permission of the Keeper of the Seals to visit me,
and she was waiting to be admitted.
“A lady?” I exclaimed, and the thought of Roxalanne flitted through my
mind. “Mademoiselle de Lavedan?” I inquired.
He nodded. “Yes,” said he; then added, “She seems in sore affliction,
monsieur.”
I besought him to admit her forthwith, and presently she came.
Castelroux closed the door as he withdrew, and we were left alone
together. As she put aside her cloak, and disclosed to me the pallor of
her face and the disfiguring red about her gentle eyes, telling of
tears and sleeplessness, all my own trouble seemed to vanish in the
contemplation of her affliction.
We stood a moment confronting each other with no word spoken. Then,
dropping her glance, and advancing a step, in a faltering, hesitating
manner “Monsieur, monsieur,” she murmured in a suffocating voice.
In a bound I was beside her, and I had gathered her in my arms, her
little brown head against my shoulder.
“Roxalanne!” I whispered as soothingly as I might--“Roxalanne!”
But she struggled to be free of my embrace.
“Let me go, monsieur,” she pleaded, a curious shrinking in her very
voice. “Do not touch me, monsieur. You do not know--you do not know.”
For answer, I enfolded her more tightly still.
“But I do know, little one,” I whispered; “and I even understand.”
At that, her struggles ceased upon the instant, and she seemed to lie
limp and helpless in my arms.
“You know, monsieur,” she questioned me--“you know that I betrayed you?”
“Yes,” I answered simply.
“And you can forgive me? I am sending you to your death and you have no
reproaches for me! Oh, monsieur, it will kill me!”
“Hush, child!” I whispered. “What reproaches can I have for you? I know
the motives that impelled you.”
“Not altogether, monsieur; you cannot know them. I loved you, monsieur.
I do love you, monsieur. Oh! this is not a time to consider words. If I
am bold and unmaidenly, I--I--”
“Neither bold nor unmaidenly, but--oh, the sweetest damsel in all
France, my Roxalanne!” I broke in, coming to her aid. “Mine was a
leprous, sinful soul, child, when I came into Languedoc. I had no
faith in any human good, and I looked as little for an honest man or a
virtuous woman as one looks for honey in a nettle. I was soured, and my
life had hardly been such a life as it was meet to bring into contact
with your own. Then, among the roses at Lavedan, in your dear company,
Roxalanne, it seemed that some of the good, some of the sweetness, some
of the purity about you were infused anew into my heart. I became young
again, and I seemed oddly cleansed. In that hour of my rejuvenation I
loved you, Roxalanne.”
Her face had been raised to mine as I spoke. There came now a flutter of
the eyelids, a curious smile about the lips. Then her head drooped again
and was laid against my breast; a sigh escaped her, and she began to
weep softly.
“Nay, Roxalanne, do not fret. Come, child, it is not your way to be
weak.”
“I have betrayed you!” she moaned. “I am sending you to your death!”
“I understand, I understand,” I answered, smoothing her brown hair.
“Not quite, monsieur. I loved you so, monsieur, that you can have no
thought of how I suffered that morning when Mademoiselle de Marsac came
to Lavedan.
“At first it was but the pain of thinking that--that I was about to lose
you; that you were to go out of my life, and that I should see you no
more--you whom I had enshrined so in my heart.
“I called myself a little fool that morning for having dreamed that
you had come to care for me; my vanity I thought had deluded me into
imagining that your manner towards me had a tenderness that spoke of
affection. I was bitter with myself, and I suffered oh, so much! Then
later, when I was in the rose garden, you came to me.
“You remember how you seized me, and how by your manner you showed
me that it was not vanity alone had misled me. You had fooled me, I
thought; even in that hour I imagined you were fooling me; you made
light of me; and my sufferings were naught to you so that I might give
you some amusement to pass the leisure and monotony of your sojourn with
us.”
“Roxalanne--my poor Roxalanne!” I whispered.
“Then my bitterness and sorrow all turned to anger against you. You had
broken my heart, and I thought that you had done it wantonly. For that I
burned to punish you. Ah! and not only that, perhaps. I think, too, that
some jealousy drove me on. You had wooed and slighted me, yet you had
made me love you, and if you were not for me I swore you should be
for no other. And so, while my madness endured, I quitted Lavedan, and
telling my father that I was going to Auch, to his sister's house, I
came to Toulouse and betrayed you to the Keeper of the Seals.
“Scarce was the thing done than I beheld the horror of it, and I hated
myself. In my despair, I abandoned all idea of pursuing the journey
to Auch, but turned and made my way back in haste, hoping that I might
still come to warn you. But at Grenade I met you already in charge of
the soldiers. At Grenade, too I learnt the truth--that you were not
Lesperon. Can you not guess something of my anguish then? Already
loathing my act, and beside myself for having betrayed you, think into
what despair I was plunged by Monsieur de Marsac's intimation.
“Then I understood that for reasons of your own you had concealed your
identity. You were not perhaps, betrothed; indeed, I remembered then
how, solemnly you had sworn that you were not; and so I bethought me
that your vows to me may have been sincere and such as a maid might
honourably listen to.”
“They were, Roxalanne! they were!” I cried.
But she continued “That you had Mademoiselle de Marsac's portrait was
something that I could not explain; but then I hear that you had also
Lesperon's papers upon you; so that you may have become possessed of the
one with the others. And now, monsieur--”
She ceased, and there against my breast she lay weeping and weeping
in her bitter passion of regret, until it seemed to me she would never
regain her self-control.
“It has been all my fault, Roxalanne,” said I, “and if I am to pay the
price they are exacting, it will be none too high. I embarked upon a
dastardly business; which brought me to Languedoc under false colours.
I wish, indeed, that I had told you when first the impulse to tell you
came upon me. Afterwards it grew impossible.”
“Tell me now,” she begged. “Tell me who you are.”
Sorely was I tempted to respond. Almost was I on the point of doing so,
when suddenly the thought of how she might shrink from me, of how, even
then, she might come to think that I had but simulated love for her for
infamous purposes of gain, restrained and silenced me. During the few
hours of life that might be left me I would at least be lord and master
of her heart. When I was dead--for I had little hope of Castelroux's
efforts--it would matter less, and perhaps because I was dead she would
be merciful.
“I cannot, Roxalanne. Not even now. It is too vile! If--if they carry
out the sentence on Monday, I shall leave a letter for you, telling you
everything.”
She shuddered, and a sob escaped her. From my identity her mind fled
back to the more important matter of my fate.
“They will not carry it out, monsieur! Oh, they till not! Say that you
can defend yourself, that you are not the man they believe you to be!”
“We are in God's hands, child. It may be that I shall save myself yet.
If I do, I shall come straight to you, and you shall know all that there
is to know. But, remember, child”--and raising her face in my hands, I
looked down into the blue of her tearful eyes--“remember, little one,
that in one thing I have been true and honourable, and influenced by
nothing but my heart--in my wooing of you. I love you, Roxalanne, with
all my soul, and if I should die you are the only thing in all this
world that I experience a regret at leaving.”
“I do believe it; I do, indeed. Nothing can ever alter my belief again.
Will you not, then, tell me who you are, and what is this thing, which
you call dishonourable, that brought you into Languedoc?”
A moment again I pondered. Then I shook my head.
“Wait, child,” said I; and she, obedient to my wishes, asked no more.
It was the second time that I neglected a favourable opportunity of
making that confession, and as I had regretted having allowed the first
occasion to pass unprofited, so was I, and still more poignantly, to
regret this second silence.
A little while she stayed with me yet, and I sought to instil some
measure of comfort into her soul. I spoke of the hopes that I based upon
Castelroux's finding friends to recognize me--hopes that were passing
slender. And she, poor child, sought also to cheer me and give me
courage.
“If only the King were here!” she sighed. “I would go to him, and on my
knees I would plead for your enlargement. But they say he is no nearer
than Lyons; and I could not hope to get there and back by Monday. I will
go to the Keeper of the Seals again, monsieur, and I will beg him to be
merciful, and at least to delay the sentence.”
I did not discourage her; I did not speak of the futility of such a
step. But I begged her to remain in Toulouse until Monday, that
she might visit me again before the end, if the end were to become
inevitable.
Then Castelroux came to reconduct her, and we parted. But she left me
a great consolation, a great strengthening comfort. If I were destined,
indeed, to walk to the scaffold, it seemed that I could do it with a
better grace and a gladder courage now.