At a distance of thirty-four years, during which three great revolutions
have taken place, none but elderly persons can recall the immense
excitement produced in Europe by the abduction of a senator of the
French Empire. No trial, if we except that of Trumeaux, the grocer of
the Place Saint-Michel, and that of the widow Morin, under the Empire;
those of Fualdes and de Castaing, under the Restoration; those of Madame
Lafarge and Fieschi, under the present government, ever roused so much
curiosity or so deep an interest as that of the four young men accused
of abducting Malin. Such an attack against a member of his Senate
excited the wrath of the Emperor, who was told of the arrest of the
delinquents almost at the moment when he first heard of the crime and
the negative results of the inquiries. The forest, searched throughout,
the department of the Aube, ransacked from end to end, gave not the
slightest indication of the passage of the Comte de Gondreville nor
of his imprisonment. Napoleon sent for the chief justice, who, after
obtaining certain information from the ministry of police, explained to
his Majesty the position of Malin in regard to the Simeuse brothers
and the Gondreville estate. The Emperor, at that time pre-occupied
with serious matters, considered the affair explained by these anterior
facts.
“Those young men are fools,” he said. “A lawyer like Malin will escape
any deed they may force him to sign under violence. Watch those nobles,
and discover the means they take to set the Comte de Gondreville at
liberty.”
He ordered the affair to be conducted with the utmost celerity,
regarding it as an attack on his own institutions, a fatal example of
resistance to the results of the Revolution, an effort to open the great
question of the sales of “national property,” and a hindrance to that
fusion of parties which was the constant object of his home policy.
Besides all this, he thought himself tricked by these young nobles, who
had given him their promise to live peaceably.
“Fouche’s prediction has come true,” he cried, remembering the words
uttered two years earlier by his present minister of police, who said
them under the impressions conveyed to him by Corentin’s report as to
the character and designs of Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne.
It is impossible for persons living under a constitutional government,
where no one really cares for that cold and thankless, blind, deaf Thing
called public interest, to imagine the zeal which a mere word of the
Emperor was able to inspire in his political or administrative machine.
That powerful will seemed to impress itself as much upon things as upon
men. His decision once uttered, the Emperor, overtaken by the coalition
of 1806, forgot the whole matter. He thought only of new battles to
fight, and his mind was occupied in massing his regiments to strike the
great blow at the heart of the Prussian monarchy. His desire for prompt
justice in the present case found powerful assistance in the great
uncertainty which affected the position of all magistrates of the
Empire. Just at this time Cambaceres, as arch-chancellor, and Regnier,
chief justice, were preparing to organize _tribunaux de premiere
instance_ (lower civil courts), imperial courts, and a court of appeal
or supreme court. They were agitating the question of a legal garb or
costume; to which Napoleon attached, and very justly, so much importance
in all official stations; and they were also inquiring into the
character of the persons composing the magistracy. Naturally, therefore,
the officials of the department of the Aube considered they could have
no better recommendation than to give proofs of their zeal in the matter
of the abduction of the Comte de Gondreville. Napoleon’s suppositions
became certainties to these courtiers and also to the populace.
Peace still reigned on the continent; admiration for the Emperor was
unanimous in France; he cajoled all interests, persons, vanities, and
things, in short, everything, even memories. This attack, therefore,
directed against his senator, seemed in the eyes of all an assault upon
the public welfare. The luckless and innocent gentlemen were the objects
of general opprobrium. A few nobles living quietly on their estates
deplored the affair among themselves but dared not open their lips;
in fact, how was it possible for them to oppose the current of public
opinion. Throughout the department the deaths of the eleven persons
killed by the Simeuse brothers in 1792 from the windows of the hotel
Cinq-Cygne were brought up against them. It was feared that other
returned and now emboldened _emigres_ might follow this example of
violence against those who had bought their estates from the “national
domain,” as a method of protesting against what they might call an
unjust spoliation.
The unfortunate young nobles were therefore considered as robbers,
brigands, murderers; and their connection with Michu was particularly
fatal to them. Michu, who was declared, either he or his father-in-law,
to have cut off all the heads that fell under the Terror in that
department, was made the subject of ridiculous tales. The exasperation
of the public mind was all the more intense because nearly all the
functionaries of the department owed their offices to Malin. No generous
voice uplifted itself against the verdict of the public. Besides all
this, the accused had no legal means with which to combat prejudice; for
the Code of Brumaire, year IV., giving as it did both the prosecution of
a charge and the verdict upon it into the hands of a jury, deprived the
accused of the vast protection of an appeal against legal suspicion.
The day after the arrest all the inhabitants of the chateau of
Cinq-Cygne, both masters and servants, were summoned to appear before
the prosecuting jury. Cinq-Cygne was left in charge of a farmer,
under the supervision of the abbe and his sister who moved into it.
Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, with Monsieur and Madame d’Hauteserre, went
to Troyes and occupied a small house belonging to Durieu in one of the
long and wide faubourgs which lead from the little town. Laurence’s
heart was wrung when she at last comprehended the temper of the
populace, the malignity of the bourgeoisie, and the hostility of the
administration, from the many little events which happened to them as
relatives of prisoners accused of criminal wrong-doing and about to
be judged in a provincial town. Instead of hearing encouraging or
compassionate words they heard only speeches which called for vengeance;
proofs of hatred surrounded them in place of the strict politeness or
the reserve required by mere decency; but above all they were conscious
of an isolation which every mind must feel, but more particularly those
which are made distrustful by misfortune.
Laurence, who had recovered her vigor of mind, relied upon the innocence
of the accused, and despised the community too much to be frightened by
the stern and silent disapproval they met with everywhere. She sustained
the courage of Monsieur and Madame d’Hauteserre, all the while thinking
of the judicial struggle which was now being hurried on. She was,
however, to receive a blow she little expected, which, undoubtedly,
diminished her courage.
In the midst of this great disaster, at the moment when this afflicted
family were made to feel themselves, as it were, in a desert, a man
suddenly became exalted in Laurence’s eyes and showed the full beauty of
his character. The day after the indictment was found by the jury,
and the prisoners were finally committed for trial, the Marquis de
Chargeboeuf courageously appeared, still in the same old caleche, to
support and protect his young cousin. Foreseeing the haste with which
the law would be administered, this chief of a great family had already
gone to Paris and secured the services of the most able as well as the
most honest lawyer of the old school, named Bordin, who was for ten
years counsel of the nobility in Paris, and was ultimately succeeded by
the celebrated Derville. This excellent lawyer chose for his assistant
the grandson of a former president of the parliament of Normandy, whose
studies had been made under his tuition. This young lawyer, who was
destined to be appointed deputy-attorney-general in Paris after the
conclusion of the present trial, became eventually one of the most
celebrated of French magistrates. Monsieur de Grandville, for that was
his name, accepted the defence of the four young men, being glad of
an opportunity to make his first appearance as an advocate with
distinction.
The old marquis, alarmed at the ravages which troubles had wrought in
Laurence’s appearance, was charmingly kind and considerate. He made no
allusion to his neglected advice; he presented Bordin as an oracle whose
counsel must be followed to the letter, and young de Grandville as a
defender in whom the utmost confidence might be placed.
Laurence held out her hand to the kind old man, and pressed his with an
eagerness which delighted him.
“You were right,” she said.
“Will you now take my advice?” he asked.
The young countess bowed her head in assent, as did Monsieur and Madame
d’Hauteserre.
“Well, then, come to my house; it is in the middle of town, close to
the courthouse. You and your lawyers will be better off there than here,
where you are crowded and too far from the field of battle. Here, you
would have to cross the town twice a day.”
Laurence, accepted, and the old man took her with Madame d’Hauteserre
to his house, which became the home of the Cinq-Cygne household and the
lawyers of the defence during the whole time the trial lasted. After
dinner, when the doors were closed, Bordin made Laurence relate every
circumstance of the affair, entreating her to omit nothing, not the most
trifling detail. Though many of the facts had already been told to him
and his young assistant by the marquis on their journey from Paris
to Troyes, Bordin listened, his feet on the fender, without obtruding
himself into the recital. The young lawyer, however, could not help
being divided between his admiration for Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, and
the attention he was bound to give to the facts of his case.
“Is that really all?” asked Bordin when Laurence had related the events
of the drama just as the present narrative has given them up to the
present time.
“Yes,” she answered.
Profound silence reigned for several minutes in the salon of the
Chargeboeuf mansion where this scene took place,--one of the most
important which occur in life. All cases are judged by the counsellors
engaged in them, just as the death or life or a patient is foreseen by
a physician, before the final struggle which the one sustains
against nature, the other against law. Laurence, Monsieur and Madame
d’Hauteserre, and the marquis sat with their eyes fixed on the swarthy
and deeply pitted face of the old lawyer, who was now to pronounce the
words of life or death. Monsieur d’Hauteserre wiped the sweat from his
brow. Laurence looked at the younger man and noted his saddened face.
“Well, my dear Bordin?” said the marquis at last, holding out his
snuffbox, from which the old lawyer took a pinch in an absent-minded
way.
Bordin rubbed the calf of his leg, covered with thick stockings of
black raw silk, for he always wore black cloth breeches and a coat made
somewhat in the shape of those which are now termed _a la Francaise_.
He cast his shrewd eyes upon his clients with an anxious expression, the
effect of which was icy.
“Must I analyze all that?” he said; “am I to speak frankly?”
“Yes; go on, monsieur,” said Laurence.
“All that you have innocently done can be converted into proof against
you,” said the old lawyer. “We cannot save your friends; we can only
reduce the penalty. The sale which you induced Michu to make of his
property will be taken as evident proof of your criminal intentions
against the senator. You sent your servants to Troyes so that you might
be alone; that is all the more plausible because it is actually true.
The elder d’Hauteserre made an unfortunate speech to Beauvisage, which
will be your ruin. You yourself, mademoiselle, made another in your
own courtyard, which proves that you have long shown ill-will to
the possessor of Gondreville. Besides, you were at the gate of the
_rond-point_, apparently on the watch, about the time when the abduction
took place; if they have not arrested you, it is solely because they
fear to bring a sentimental element into the affair.”
“The case cannot be successfully defended,” said Monsieur de Grandville.
“The less so,” continued Bordin, “because we cannot tell the whole
truth. Michu and the Messieurs de Simeuse and d’Hauteserre must hold to
the assertion that you merely went for an excursion into the forest and
returned to Cinq-Cygne for luncheon. Allowing that we can show you were
in the house at three o’clock (the exact hour at which the attack was
made), who are our witnesses? Marthe, the wife of one of the accused,
the Durieus, and Catherine, your own servants, and Monsieur and Madame
d’Hauteserre, father and mother of two of the accused. Such testimony
is valueless; the law does not admit it against you, and commonsense
rejects it when given in your favor. If, on the other hand, you were to
say you went to the forest to recover eleven hundred thousand francs in
gold, you would send the accused to the galleys as robbers. Judge, jury,
audience, and the whole of France would believe that you took that gold
from Gondreville, and abducted the senator that you might ransack his
house. The accusation as it now stands is not wholly clear, but tell
the truth about the matter and it would become as plain as day; the jury
would declare that the robbery explained the mysterious features,--for
in these days, you must remember, a royalist means a thief. This very
case is welcomed as a legitimate political vengeance. The prisoners are
now in danger of the death penalty; but that is not dishonoring under
some circumstances. Whereas, if they can be proved to have stolen money,
which can never be made to seem excusable, you lose all benefit of
whatever interest may attach to persons condemned to death for other
crimes. If, at the first, you had shown the hiding-places of the
treasure, the plan of the forest, the tubes in which the gold was
buried, and the gold itself, as an explanation of your day’s work, it is
possible you might have been believed by an impartial magistrate, but as
it is we must be silent. God grant that none of the prisoners may reveal
the truth and compromise the defence; if they do, we must rely on our
cross-examinations.”
Laurence wrung her hands in despair and raised her eyes to heaven with
a despondent look, for she saw at last in all its depths the gulf into
which her cousins had fallen. The marquis and the young lawyer agreed
with the dreadful view of Bordin. Old d’Hauteserre wept.
“Ah! why did they not listen to the Abbe Goujet and fly!” cried Madame
d’Hauteserre, exasperated.
“If they could have escaped, and you prevented them,” said Bordin,
“you have killed them yourselves. Judgment by default gains time; time
enables the innocent to clear themselves. This is the most mysterious
case I have ever known in my life, in the course of which I have
certainly seen and known many strange things.”
“It is inexplicable to every one, even to us,” said Monsieur de
Grandville. “If the prisoners are innocent some one else has committed
the crime. Five persons do not come to a place as if by enchantment,
obtain five horses shod precisely like those of the accused, imitate the
appearance of some of them, and put Malin apparently underground for the
sole purpose of casting suspicion on Michu and the four gentlemen. The
unknown guilty parties must have had some strong reason for wearing the
skin, as it were, of five innocent men. To discover them, even to get
upon their traces, we need as much power as the government itself, as
many agents and as many eyes as there are townships in a radius of fifty
miles.”
“The thing is impossible,” said Bordin. “There’s no use thinking of it.
Since society invented law it has never found a way to give an innocent
prisoner an equal chance against a magistrate who is pre-disposed
against him. Law is not bilateral. The defence, without spies or
police, cannot call social power to the rescue of its innocent clients.
Innocence has nothing on her side but reason, and reasoning which may
strike a judge is often powerless on the narrow minds of jurymen. The
whole department is against you. The eight jurors who have signed the
indictment are each and all purchasers of national domain. Among the
trial jurors we are certain to have some who have either sold or bought
the same property. In short, we can get nothing but a Malin jury. You
must therefore set up a consistent defence, hold fast to it, and perish
in your innocence. You will certainly be condemned. But there’s a court
of appeal; we will go there and try to remain there as long as possible.
If in the mean time we can collect proofs in your favor you must apply
for pardon. That’s the anatomy of the business, and my advice. If we
triumph (for everything is possible in law) it will be a miracle; but
your advocate Monsieur de Grandville is the most likely man among all I
know to produce that miracle, and I’ll do my best to help him.”
“The senator has the key to the mystery,” said Monsieur de Grandville;
“for a man knows his enemies and why they are so. Here we find him
leaving Paris at the close of the winter, coming to Gondreville alone,
shutting himself up with his notary, and delivering himself over, as one
might say, to five men who seize him.”
“Certainly,” said Bordin, “his conduct seems inexplicable. But how
could we, in the face of a hostile community, become accusers when we
ourselves are the accused? We should need the help and good-will of the
government and a thousand times more proof than is wanted in ordinary
circumstances. I am convinced there was premeditation, and subtle
premeditation, on the part of our mysterious adversaries, who must have
known the situation of Michu and the Messieurs de Simeuse towards Malin.
Not to utter one word; not to steal one thing!--remarkable prudence!
I see something very different from ordinary evil-doers behind those
masks. But what would be the use of saying so to the sort of jurors we
shall have to face?”
This insight into hidden matters which gives such power to certain
lawyers and certain magistrates astonished and confounded Laurence; her
heart was wrung by that inexorable logic.
“Out of every hundred criminal cases,” continued Bordin, “there are not
ten where the law really lays bare the truth to its full extent; and
there is perhaps a good third in which the truth is never brought to
light at all. Yours is one of those cases which are inexplicable to all
parties, to accused and accusers, to the law and to the public. As for
the Emperor, he has other fish to fry than to consider the case of these
gentlemen, supposing even that they had not conspired against him. But
who the devil _is_ Malin’s enemy? and what has really been done with
him?”
Bordin and Monsieur de Grandville looked at each other; they seemed in
doubt as to Laurence’s veracity. This evident suspicion was the most
cutting of all the many pangs the girl had suffered in the affair; and
she turned upon the lawyers a look which effectually put an end to their
distrust.
The next day the indictment was handed over to the defence, and the
lawyers were then enabled to communicate with the prisoners.
Bordin informed the family that the six accused men were “well
supported,”--using a professional term.
“Monsieur de Grandville will defend Michu,” said Bordin.
“Michu!” exclaimed the Marquis de Chargeboeuf, amazed at the change.
“He is the pivot of the affair--the danger lies there,” replied the old
lawyer.
“If he is more in danger than the others, I think that is just,” cried
Laurence.
“We see certain chances,” said Monsieur de Grandville, “and we shall
study them carefully. If we are able to save these gentlemen it will be
because Monsieur d’Hauteserre ordered Michu to repair one of the stone
posts in the covered way, and also because a wolf has been seen in
the forest; in a criminal court everything depends on discussions, and
discussions often turn on trivial matters which then become of immense
importance.”
Laurence sank into that inward dejection which humiliates the soul of
all thoughtful and energetic persons when the uselessness of thought
and action is made manifest to them. It was no longer a matter
of overthrowing a usurper, or of coming to the help of devoted
friends,--fanatical sympathies wrapped in a shroud of mystery. She now
saw all social forces full-armed against her cousins and herself. There
was no taking a prison by assault with her own hands, no deliverance of
prisoners from the midst of a hostile population and beneath the eyes of
a watchful police. So, when the young lawyer, alarmed at the stupor of
the generous and noble girl, which the natural expression of her face
made still more noticeable, endeavored to revive her courage, she turned
to him and said: “I must be silent; I suffer,--I wait.”
The accent, gesture, and look with which the words were said made this
answer one of those sublime things which only need a wider stage to make
them famous.
A few moments later old d’Hauteserre was saying to the Marquis de
Chargeboeuf: “What efforts I have made for my two unfortunate sons! I
have already laid by in the Funds enough to give them eight thousand
francs a year. If they had only been willing to serve in the army they
would have reached the higher grades by this time, and could now have
married to advantage. Instead of that, all my plans are scattered to the
winds!”
“How can you,” said his wife, “think of their interests when it is a
question of their honor and their lives?”
“Monsieur d’Hauteserre thinks of everything,” said the marquis.