Asie had hit the truth. Madame de Serizy, who was regarded as one of the

most fickle of fashionable women, had had an attachment of ten years’

standing for the Marquis d’Aiglemont. Since the Marquis’ departure for

the colonies, she had gone wild about Lucien, and had won him from

the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, knowing nothing--like the Paris world

generally--of Lucien’s passion for Esther. In the world of fashion a

recognized attachment does more to ruin a woman’s reputation than ten

unconfessed liaisons; how much more then two such attachments? However,

as no one thought of Madame de Serizy as a responsible person,

the historian cannot undertake to speak for her virtue thus doubly

dog’s-eared.

She was fair, of medium height, and well preserved, as a fair woman can

be who is well preserved at all; that is to say, she did not look more

than thirty, being slender, but not lean, with a white skin and flaxen

hair; she had hands, feet, and a shape of aristocratic elegance, and

was as witty as all the Ronquerolles, spiteful, therefore, to women, and

good-natured to men. Her large fortune, her husband’s fine position, and

that of her brother, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, had protected her

from the mortifications with which any other woman would have been

overwhelmed. She had this great merit--that she was honest in her

depravity, and confessed her worship of the manners and customs of the

Regency.

Now, at forty-two this woman--who had hitherto regarded men as no more

than pleasing playthings, to whom, indeed, she had, strange to say,

granted much, regarding love as merely a matter of sacrifice to gain the

upper hand,--this woman, on first seeing Lucien, had been seized with

such a passion as the Baron de Nucingen’s for Esther. She had loved, as

Asie had just told her, for the first time in her life.

This postponement of youth is more common with Parisian women than might

be supposed, and causes the ruin of some virtuous souls just as they are

reaching the haven of forty. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was the only

person in the secret of the vehement and absorbing passion, of which

the joys, from the girlish suspicion of first love to the preposterous

follies of fulfilment, had made Leontine half crazy and insatiable.

True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther’s existence

had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in a woman

rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of meanness, to

which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly. Indeed, for the last

month the Countess would have given ten years of her life to have Lucien

again for one week. At last she had even resigned herself to accept

Esther as her rival, just when the news of her lover’s arrest had come

like the last trump on this paroxysm of devotion.

The Countess had nearly died of it. Her husband had himself nursed her

in bed, fearing the betrayal of delirium, and for twenty-four hours she

had been living with a knife in her heart. She said to her husband in

her fever:

“Save Lucien, and I will live henceforth for you alone.”

“Indeed, as Madame la Duchesse tells you, it is of no use to make your

eyes like boiled gooseberries,” cried the dreadful Asie, shaking the

Countess by the arm. “If you want to save him, there is not a minute to

lose. He is innocent--I swear it by my mother’s bones!”

“Yes, yes, of course he is!” cried the Countess, looking quite kindly at

the dreadful old woman.

“But,” Asie went on, “if Monsieur Camusot questions him the wrong way,

he can make a guilty man of him with two sentences; so, if it is in your

power to get the Conciergerie opened to you, and to say a few words

to him, go at once, and give him this paper.--He will be released

to-morrow; I will answer for it. Now, get him out of the scrape, for you

got him into it.”

“I?”

“Yes, you!--You fine ladies never have a son even when you own millions.

When I allowed myself the luxury of keeping boys, they always had their

pockets full of gold! Their amusements amused me. It is delightful to

be mother and mistress in one. Now, you--you let the men you love die of

hunger without asking any questions. Esther, now, made no speeches; she

gave, at the cost of perdition, soul and body, the million your Lucien

was required to show, and that is what has brought him to this pass----”

“Poor girl! Did she do that! I love her!” said Leontine.

“Yes--now!” said Asie, with freezing irony.

“She was a real beauty; but now, my angel, you are better looking

than she is.--And Lucien’s marriage is so effectually broken off, that

nothing can mend it,” said the Duchess in a whisper to Leontine.

The effect of this revelation and forecast was so great on the Countess

that she was well again. She passed her hand over her brow; she was

young once more.

“Now, my lady, hot foot, and make haste!” said Asie, seeing the change,

and guessing what had caused it.

“But,” said Madame de Maufrigneuse, “if the first thing is to prevent

Lucien’s being examined by Monsieur Camusot, we can do that by writing

two words to the judge and sending your man with it to the Palais,

Leontine.”

“Then come into my room,” said Madame de Serizy.

This is what was taking place at the Palais while Lucien’s protectresses

were obeying the orders issued by Jacques Collin. The gendarmes placed

the moribund prisoner on a chair facing the window in Monsieur Camusot’s

room; he was sitting in his place in front of his table. Coquart, pen in

hand, had a little table to himself a few yards off.

The aspect of a magistrate’s chambers is not a matter of indifference;

and if this room had not been chosen intentionally, it must be owned

that chance had favored justice. An examining judge, like a painter,

requires the clear equable light of a north window, for the criminal’s

face is a picture which he must constantly study. Hence most magistrates

place their table, as this of Camusot’s was arranged, so as to sit with

their back to the window and leave the face of the examinee in broad

daylight. Not one of them all but, by the end of six months, has

assumed an absent-minded and indifferent expression, if he does not wear

spectacles, and maintains it throughout the examination.

It was a sudden change of expression in the prisoner’s face, detected

by these means, and caused by a sudden point-blank question, that led

to the discovery of the crime committed by Castaing at the very

moment when, after a long consultation with the public prosecutor, the

magistrate was about to let the criminal loose on society for lack of

evidence. This detail will show the least intelligent person how living,

interesting, curious, and dramatically terrible is the conflict of an

examination--a conflict without witnesses, but always recorded. God

knows what remains on the paper of the scenes at white heat in which a

look, a tone, a quiver of the features, the faintest touch of color lent

by some emotion, has been fraught with danger, as though the adversaries

were savages watching each other to plant a fatal stroke. A report is no

more than the ashes of the fire.

“What is your real name?” Camusot asked Jacques Collin.

“Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo, and secret

envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand VII.”

It must here be observed that Jacques Collin spoke French like a Spanish

trollop, blundering over it in such a way as to make his answers almost

unintelligible, and to require them to be repeated. But Monsieur de

Nucingen’s German barbarisms have already weighted this Scene too much

to allow of the introduction of other sentences no less difficult to

read, and hindering the rapid progress of the tale.

“Then you have papers to prove your right to the dignities of which you

speak?” asked Camusot.

“Yes, monsieur--my passport, a letter from his Catholic Majesty

authorizing my mission.--In short, if you will but send at once to the

Spanish Embassy two lines, which I will write in your presence, I shall

be identified. Then, if you wish for further evidence, I will write to

His Eminence the High Almoner of France, and he will immediately send

his private secretary.”

“And do you still pretend that you are dying?” asked the magistrate. “If

you have really gone through all the sufferings you have complained

of since your arrest, you ought to be dead by this time,” said Camusot

ironically.

“You are simply trying the courage of an innocent man and the strength

of his constitution,” said the prisoner mildly.

“Coquart, ring. Send for the prison doctor and an infirmary

attendant.--We shall be obliged to remove your coat and proceed to

verify the marks on your shoulder,” Camusot went on.

“I am in your hands, monsieur.”

The prisoner then inquired whether the magistrate would be kind enough

to explain to him what he meant by “the marks,” and why they should be

sought on his shoulder. The judge was prepared for this question.

“You are suspected of being Jacques Collin, an escaped convict,

whose daring shrinks at nothing, not even at sacrilege!” said Camusot

promptly, his eyes fixed on those of the prisoner.

Jacques Collin gave no sign, and did not color; he remained quite calm,

and assumed an air of guileless curiosity as he gazed at Camusot.

“I, monsieur? A convict? May the Order I belong to and God above forgive

you for such an error. Tell me what I can do to prevent your continuing

to offer such an insult to the rights of free men, to the Church, and to

the King my master.”

The judge made no reply to this, but explained to the Abbe that if

he had been branded, a penalty at that time inflicted by law on all

convicts sent to the hulks, the letters could be made to show by giving

him a slap on the shoulder.

“Oh, monsieur,” said Jacques Collin, “it would indeed be unfortunate if

my devotion to the Royal cause should prove fatal to me.”

“Explain yourself,” said the judge, “that is what you are here for.”

“Well, monsieur, I must have a great many scars on my back, for I was

shot in the back as a traitor to my country while I was faithful to my

King, by constitutionalists who left me for dead.”

“You were shot, and you are alive!” said Camusot.

“I had made friends with some of the soldiers, to whom certain pious

persons had sent money, so they placed me so far off that only spent

balls reached me, and the men aimed at my back. This is a fact that His

Excellency the Ambassador can bear witness to----”

“This devil of a man has an answer for everything! However, so much the

better,” thought Camusot, who assumed so much severity only to satisfy

the demands of justice and of the police. “How is it that a man of your

character,” he went on, addressing the convict, “should have been found

in the house of the Baron de Nucingen’s mistress--and such a mistress, a

girl who had been a common prostitute!”

“This is why I was found in a courtesan’s house, monsieur,” replied

Jacques Collin. “But before telling you the reasons for my being there,

I ought to mention that at the moment when I was just going upstairs

I was seized with the first attack of my illness, and I had no time to

speak to the girl. I knew of Mademoiselle Esther’s intention of killing

herself; and as young Lucien de Rubempre’s interests were involved, and

I have a particular affection for him for sacredly secret reasons, I

was going to try to persuade the poor creature to give up the idea,

suggested to her by despair. I meant to tell her that Lucien must

certainly fail in his last attempt to win Mademoiselle Clotilde de

Grandlieu; and I hoped that by telling her she had inherited seven

millions of francs, I might give her courage to live.

“I am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a martyr to the secrets

confided to me. By the suddenness of my illness I believe that I had

been poisoned that very morning, but my strong constitution has saved

me. I know that a certain agent of the political police is dogging me,

and trying to entangle me in some discreditable business.

“If, at my request, you had sent for a doctor on my arrival here, you

would have had ample proof of what I am telling you as to the state of

my health. Believe me, monsieur, some persons far above our heads have

some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some villain, so as to

have a right to get rid of me. It is not all profit to serve a king;

they have their meannesses. The Church alone is faultless.”

It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin’s

countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence,

for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention of

Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken.

“Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur

Lucien de Rubempre?”

“Can you not guess them? I am sixty years of age, monsieur--I implore

you do not write it.--It is because--must I say it?”

“It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to Monsieur

Lucien de Rubempre’s, if you tell everything,” replied the judge.

“Because he is--Oh, God! he is my son,” he gasped out with an effort.

And he fainted away.

“Do not write that down, Coquart,” said Camusot in an undertone.

Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of “Four thieves’ Vinegar.”

“If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!” thought Camusot.

Coquart held the phial under the convict’s nose, while the judge

examined him with the keen eye of a lynx--and a magistrate.

“Take his wig off,” said Camusot, after waiting till the man recovered

consciousness.

Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile an

expression his face would assume.

“If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself----Yes,

Coquart, remove it,” said Camusot to his clerk.

Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable resignation;

but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous to behold in

its natural aspect.

The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty. While waiting

for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work to

classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized

in Lucien’s rooms. After carrying out their functions in the Rue

Saint-Georges at Mademoiselle Esther’s house, the police had searched

the rooms at the Quai Malaquais.

“You have your hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy,” said

Carlos Herrera. “But I cannot imagine why you should have almost all

Lucien’s papers,” he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at the

judge.

Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word

“almost.”

“Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your

accomplice,” said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his

examinee.

“You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent as

I am,” replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest

agitation.

“We shall see. We have not as yet established your identity,” Camusot

observed, surprised at the prisoner’s indifference. “If you are really

Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be

completely altered.”

“To be sure, she became Madame Chardon--Mademoiselle de Rubempre!”

murmured Carlos. “Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life.”

He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips seemed to

be uttering a fervent prayer.

“But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he was, the

companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all the crimes

of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably true.”

Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very cleverly

delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words “_knew that he

was_” and “_escaped convict_” was to lift his hands to heaven with a

gesture of noble and dignified sorrow.

“Monsieur l’Abbe,” Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, “if

you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged

to do in the interests of justice and truth.”

Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer’s very voice as he spoke

the words “Monsieur l’Abbe.” The man’s face never changed; Camusot had

looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of

his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a

criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in

Machiavellian dissimulation.

“I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an Order of very austere

discipline,” replied Jacques Collin, with apostolic mildness. “I

understand everything, and am inured to suffering. I should be free by

this time if you had discovered in my room the hiding-place where I keep

my papers--for I see you have none but unimportant documents.”

This was a finishing stroke to Camusot: Jacques Collin by his air of

ease and simplicity had counteracted all the suspicions to which his

appearance, unwigged, had given rise.

“Where are these papers?”

“I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary from the Spanish

Embassy to accompany your messenger. He will take them and be answerable

to you for the documents, for it is to me a matter of confidential

duty--diplomatic secrets which would compromise his late Majesty Louis

XVIII--Indeed, monsieur, it would be better----However, you are a

magistrate--and, after all, the Ambassador, to whom I refer the whole

question, must decide.”

At this juncture the usher announced the arrival of the doctor and the

infirmary attendant, who came in.

“Good-morning, Monsieur Lebrun,” said Camusot to the doctor. “I have

sent for you to examine the state of health of this prisoner under

suspicion. He says he had been poisoned and at the point of death since

the day before yesterday; see if there is any risk in undressing him to

look for the brand.”

Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin’s hand, felt his pulse, asked to look

at his tongue, and scrutinized him steadily. This inspection lasted

about ten minutes.

“The prisoner has been suffering severely,” said the medical officer,

“but at this moment he is amazingly strong----”

“That spurious energy, monsieur, is due to nervous excitement caused by

my strange position,” said Jacques Collin, with the dignity of a bishop.

“That is possible,” said Monsieur Lebrun.

At a sign from Camusot the prisoner was stripped of everything but his

trousers, even of his shirt, and the spectators might admire the hairy

torso of a Cyclops. It was that of the Farnese Hercules at Naples in its

colossal exaggeration.

“For what does nature intend a man of this build?” said Lebrun to the

judge.

The usher brought in the ebony staff, which from time immemorial has

been the insignia of his office, and is called his rod; he struck it

several times over the place where the executioner had branded the fatal

letters. Seventeen spots appeared, irregularly distributed, but the most

careful scrutiny could not recognize the shape of any letters. The usher

indeed pointed out that the top bar of the letter T was shown by two

spots, with an interval between of the length of that bar between the

two points at each end of it, and there was another spot where the

bottom of the T should be.

“Still that is quite uncertain,” said Camusot, seeing doubt in the

expression of the prison doctor’s countenance.

Carlos begged them to make the same experiment on the other shoulder and

the middle of his back. About fifteen more such scars appeared, which,

at the Spaniard’s request, the doctor made a note of; and he pronounced

that the man’s back had been so extensively seamed by wounds that the

brand would not show even if it had been made by the executioner.

An office-clerk now came in from the Prefecture, and handed a note to

Monsieur Camusot, requesting an answer. After reading it the lawyer went

to speak to Coquart, but in such a low voice that no one could catch a

word. Only, by a glance from Camusot, Jacques Collin could guess that

some information concerning him had been sent by the Prefet of Police.

“That friend of Peyrade’s is still at my heels,” thought Jacques Collin.

“If only I knew him, I would get rid of him as I did of Contenson. If

only I could see Asie once more!”

After signing a paper written by Coquart, the judge put it into an

envelope and handed it to the clerk of the Delegate’s office.

This is an indispensable auxiliary to justice. It is under the direction

of a police commissioner, and consists of peace-officers who, with the

assistance of the police commissioners of each district, carry into

effect orders for searching the houses or apprehending the persons of

those who are suspected of complicity in crimes and felonies. These

functionaries in authority save the examining magistrates a great deal

of very precious time.

At a sign from the judge the prisoner was dressed by Monsieur Lebrun and

the attendant, who then withdrew with the usher. Camusot sat down at his

table and played with his pen.

“You have an aunt,” he suddenly said to Jacques Collin.

“An aunt?” echoed Don Carlos Herrera with amazement. “Why, monsieur,

I have no relations. I am the unacknowledged son of the late Duke of

Ossuna.”

But to himself he said, “They are burning”--an allusion to the game of

hot cockles, which is indeed a childlike symbol of the dreadful struggle

between justice and the criminal.

“Pooh!” said Camusot. “You still have an aunt living, Mademoiselle

Jacqueline Collin, whom you placed in Esther’s service under the

eccentric name of Asie.”

Jacques Collin shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that was

in perfect harmony with the cool curiosity he gave throughout to the

judge’s words, while Camusot studied him with cunning attention.

“Take care,” said Camusot; “listen to me.”

“I am listening, sir.”

“You aunt is a wardrobe dealer at the Temple; her business is managed by

a demoiselle Paccard, the sister of a convict--herself a very good girl,

known as la Romette. Justice is on the traces of your aunt, and in a few

hours we shall have decisive evidence. The woman is wholly devoted to

you----”

“Pray go on, Monsieur le Juge,” said Collin coolly, in answer to a

pause; “I am listening to you.”

“Your aunt, who is about five years older than you are, was formerly

Marat’s mistress--of odious memory. From that blood-stained source she

derived the little fortune she possesses.

“From information I have received she must be a very clever receiver of

stolen goods, for no proofs have yet been found to commit her on. After

Marat’s death she seems, from the notes I have here, to have lived with

a chemist who was condemned to death in the year XII. for issuing false

coin. She was called as witness in the case. It was from this intimacy

that she derived her knowledge of poisons.

“In 1812 and in 1816 she spent two years in prison for placing girls

under age upon the streets.

“You were already convicted of forgery; you had left the banking house

where your aunt had been able to place you as clerk, thanks to the

education you had had, and the favor enjoyed by your aunt with certain

persons for whose debaucheries she supplied victims.

“All this, prisoner, is not much like the dignity of the Dukes d’Ossuna.

“Do you persist in your denial?”

Jacques Collin sat listening to Monsieur Camusot, and thinking of his

happy childhood at the College of the Oratorians, where he had been

brought up, a meditation which lent him a truly amazed look. And in

spite of his skill as a practised examiner, Camusot could bring no sort

of expression to those placid features.

“If you have accurately recorded the account of myself I gave you at

first,” said Jacques Collin, “you can read it through again. I cannot

alter the facts. I never went to the woman’s house; how should I know

who her cook was? The persons of whom you speak are utterly unknown to

me.”

“Notwithstanding your denial, we shall proceed to confront you with

persons who may succeed in diminishing your assurance”

“A man who has been three times shot is used to anything,” replied

Jacques Collin meekly.

Camusot proceeded to examine the seized papers while awaiting the return

of the famous Bibi-Lupin, whose expedition was amazing; for at half-past

eleven, the inquiry having begun at ten o’clock, the usher came in to

inform the judge in an undertone of Bibi-Lupin’s arrival.

“Show him in,” replied M. Camusot.

Bibi-Lupin, who had been expected to exclaim, “It is he,” as he came

in, stood puzzled. He did not recognize his man in a face pitted with

smallpox. This hesitancy startled the magistrate.

“It is his build, his height,” said the agent. “Oh! yes, it is you,

Jacques Collin!” he went on, as he examined his eyes, forehead, and

ears. “There are some things which no disguise can alter.... Certainly

it is he, Monsieur Camusot. Jacques has the scar of a cut on his left

arm. Take off his coat, and you will see...”

Jacques Collin was again obliged to take off his coat; Bibi-Lupin turned

up his sleeve and showed the scar he had spoken of.

“It is the scar of a bullet,” replied Don Carlos Herrera. “Here are

several more.”

“Ah! It is certainly his voice,” cried Bibi-Lupin.

“Your certainty,” said Camusot, “is merely an opinion; it is not proof.”

“I know that,” said Bibi-Lupin with deference. “But I will bring

witnesses. One of the boarders from the Maison Vauquer is here already,”

said he, with an eye on Collin.

But the prisoner’s set, calm face did not move a muscle.

“Show the person in,” said Camusot roughly, his dissatisfaction

betraying itself in spite of his seeming indifference.

This irritation was not lost on Jacques Collin, who had not counted

on the judge’s sympathy, and sat lost in apathy, produced by his deep

meditations in the effort to guess what the cause could be.

The usher now showed in Madame Poiret. At this unexpected appearance the

prisoner had a slight shiver, but his trepidation was not remarked by

Camusot, who seemed to have made up his mind.

“What is your name?” asked he, proceeding to carry out the formalities

introductory to all depositions and examinations.

Madame Poiret, a little old woman as white and wrinkled as a sweetbread,

dressed in a dark-blue silk gown, gave her name as Christine Michelle

Michonneau, wife of one Poiret, and her age as fifty-one years, said

that she was born in Paris, lived in the Rue des Poules at the corner

of the Rue des Postes, and that her business was that of lodging-house

keeper.

“In 1818 and 1819,” said the judge, “you lived, madame, in a

boarding-house kept by a Madame Vauquer?”

“Yes, monsieur; it was there that I met Monsieur Poiret, a retired

official, who became my husband, and whom I have nursed in his bed this

twelvemonth past. Poor man! he is very bad; and I cannot be long away

from him.”

“There was a certain Vautrin in the house at the time?” asked Camusot.

“Oh, monsieur, that is quite a long story; he was a horrible man, from

the galleys----”

“You helped to get him arrested?”

“That is not true sir.”

“You are in the presence of the Law; be careful,” said Monsieur Camusot

severely.

Madame Poiret was silent.

“Try to remember,” Camusot went on. “Do you recollect the man? Would you

know him again?”

“I think so.”

“Is this the man?”

Madame Poiret put on her “eye-preservers,” and looked at the Abbe Carlos

Herrera.

“It is his build, his height; and yet--no--if--Monsieur le Juge,” she

said, “if I could see his chest I should recognize him at once.”

The magistrate and his clerk could not help laughing, notwithstanding

the gravity of their office; Jacques Collin joined in their hilarity,

but discreetly. The prisoner had not put on his coat after Bibi-Lupin

had removed it, and at a sign from the judge he obligingly opened his

shirt.

“Yes, that is his fur trimming, sure enough!--But it has worn gray,

Monsieur Vautrin,” cried Madame Poiret.

“What have you to say to that?” asked the judge of the prisoner.

“That she is mad,” replied Jacques Collin.

“Bless me! If I had a doubt--for his face is altered--that voice would

be enough. He is the man who threatened me. Ah! and those are his eyes!”

“The police agent and this woman,” said Camusot, speaking to Jacques

Collin, “cannot possibly have conspired to say the same thing, for

neither of them had seen you till now. How do you account for that?”

“Justice has blundered more conspicuously even than it does now in

accepting the evidence of a woman who recognizes a man by the hair on

his chest and the suspicions of a police agent,” replied Jacques Collin.

“I am said to resemble a great criminal in voice, eyes, and build;

that seems a little vague. As to the memory which would prove certain

relations between Madame and my Sosie--which she does not blush to

own--you yourself laughed at. Allow me, monsieur, in the interests of

truth, which I am far more anxious to establish for my own sake than you

can be for the sake of justice, to ask this lady--Madame Foiret----”

“Poiret.”

“Poret--excuse me, I am a Spaniard--whether she remembers the other

persons who lived in this--what did you call the house?”

“A boarding-house,” said Madame Poiret.

“I do not know what that is.”

“A house where you can dine and breakfast by subscription.”

“You are right,” said Camusot, with a favorable nod to Jacques Collin,

whose apparent good faith in suggesting means to arrive at some

conclusion struck him greatly. “Try to remember the boarders who were in

the house when Jacques Collin was apprehended.”

“There were Monsieur de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, Pere Goriot,

Mademoiselle Taillefer----”

“That will do,” said Camusot, steadily watching Jacques Collin, whose

expression did not change. “Well, about this Pere Goriot?”

“He is dead,” said Madame Poiret.

“Monsieur,” said Jacques Collin, “I have several times met Monsieur de

Rastignac, a friend, I believe, of Madame de Nucingen’s; and if it is

the same, he certainly never supposed me to be the convict with whom

these persons try to identify me.”

“Monsieur de Rastignac and Doctor Bianchon,” said the magistrate, “both

hold such a social position that their evidence, if it is in your favor,

will be enough to procure your release.--Coquart, fill up a summons for

each of them.”

The formalities attending Madame Poiret’s examination were over in a few

minutes; Coquart read aloud to her the notes he had made of the little

scene, and she signed the paper; but the prisoner refused to sign,

alleging his ignorance of the forms of French law.

“That is enough for to-day,” said Monsieur Camusot. “You must be wanting

food. I will have you taken back to the Conciergerie.”

“Alas! I am suffering too much to be able to eat,” said Jacques Collin.

Camusot was anxious to time Jacques Collin’s return to coincide with the

prisoners’ hour of exercise in the prison yard; but he needed a reply

from the Governor of the Conciergerie to the order he had given him in

the morning, and he rang for the usher. The usher appeared, and told

him that the porter’s wife, from the house on the Quai Malaquais, had an

important document to communicate with reference to Monsieur Lucien de

Rubempre. This was so serious a matter that it put Camusot’s intentions

out of his head.

“Show her in,” said he.

“Beg your pardon; pray excuse me, gentlemen all,” said the woman,

courtesying to the judge and the Abbe Carlos by turns. “We were so

worried by the Law--my husband and me--the twice when it has marched

into our house, that we had forgotten a letter that was lying, for

Monsieur Lucien, in our chest of drawers, which we paid ten sous for

it, though it was posted in Paris, for it is very heavy, sir. Would you

please to pay me back the postage? For God knows when we shall see our

lodgers again!”

“Was this letter handed to you by the postman?” asked Camusot, after

carefully examining the envelope.

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Coquart, write full notes of this deposition.--Go on, my good woman;

tell us your name and your business.” Camusot made the woman take the

oath, and then he dictated the document.

While these formalities were being carried out, he was scrutinizing the

postmark, which showed the hours of posting and delivery, as well at the

date of the day. And this letter, left for Lucien the day after Esther’s

death, had beyond a doubt been written and posted on the day of the

catastrophe. Monsieur Camusot’s amazement may therefore be imagined when

he read this letter written and signed by her whom the law believed to

have been the victim of a crime:--

“_Esther to Lucien_.

“MONDAY, May 13th, 1830.

“My last day; ten in the morning.

“MY LUCIEN,--I have not an hour to live. At eleven o’clock I shall

be dead, and I shall die without a pang. I have paid fifty

thousand francs for a neat little black currant, containing a

poison that will kill me with the swiftness of lightning. And so,

my darling, you may tell yourself, ‘My little Esther had no

suffering.’--and yet I shall suffer in writing these pages.

“The monster who has paid so dear for me, knowing that the day

when I should know myself to be his would have no morrow--Nucingen

has just left me, as drunk as a bear with his skin full of wind.

For the first and last time in my life I have had the opportunity

of comparing my old trade as a street hussy with the life of true

love, of placing the tenderness which unfolds in the infinite

above the horrors of a duty which longs to destroy itself and

leave no room even for a kiss. Only such loathing could make death

delightful.

“I have taken a bath; I should have liked to send for the father

confessor of the convent where I was baptized, to have confessed

and washed my soul. But I have had enough of prostitution; it

would be profaning a sacrament; and besides, I feel myself

cleansed in the waters of sincere repentance. God must do what He

will with me.

“But enough of all this maudlin; for you I want to be your Esther

to the last moment, not to bore you with my death, or the future,

or God, who is good, and who would not be good if He were to

torture me in the next world when I have endured so much misery in

this.

“I have before me your beautiful portrait, painted by Madame de

Mirbel. That sheet of ivory used to comfort me in your absence, I

look at it with rapture as I write you my last thoughts, and tell

you of the last throbbing of my heart. I shall enclose the

miniature in this letter, for I cannot bear that it should be

stolen or sold. The mere thought that what has been my great joy

may lie behind a shop window, mixed up with the ladies and

officers of the Empire, or a parcel of Chinese absurdities, is a

small death to me. Destroy that picture, my sweetheart, wipe it

out, never give it to any one--unless, indeed, the gift might win

back the heart of that walking, well-dressed maypole, that

Clotilde de Grandlieu, who will make you black and blue in her

sleep, her bones are so sharp.--Yes, to that I consent, and then I

shall still be of some use to you, as when I was alive. Oh! to

give you pleasure, or only to make you laugh, I would have stood

over a brazier with an apple in my mouth to cook it for you.--So

my death even will be of service to you.--I should have marred

your home.

“Oh! that Clotilde! I cannot understand her.--She might have been

your wife, have borne your name, have never left you day or night,

have belonged to you--and she could make difficulties! Only the

Faubourg Saint-Germain can do that! and yet she has not ten pounds

of flesh on her bones!

“Poor Lucien! Dear ambitious failure! I am thinking of your future

life. Well, well! you will more than once regret your poor

faithful dog, the good girl who would fly to serve you, who would

have been dragged into a police court to secure your happiness,

whose only occupation was to think of your pleasures and invent

new ones, who was so full of love for you--in her hair, her feet,

her ears--your ballerina, in short, whose every look was a

benediction; who for six years has thought of nothing but you, who

was so entirely your chattel that I have never been anything but

an effluence of your soul, as light is that of the sun. However,

for lack of money and of honor, I can never be your wife. I have

at any rate provided for your future by giving you all I have.

“Come as soon as you get this letter and take what you find under

my pillow, for I do not trust the people about me. Understand that

I mean to look beautiful when I am dead. I shall go to bed, and

lay myself flat in an attitude--why not? Then I shall break the

little pill against the roof of my mouth, and shall not be

disfigured by any convulsion or by a ridiculous position.

“Madame de Serizy has quarreled with you, I know, because of me;

but when she hears that I am dead, you see, dear pet, she will

forgive. Make it up with her, and she will find you a suitable

wife if the Grandlieus persist in their refusal.

“My dear, I do not want you to grieve too much when you hear of my

death. To begin with, I must tell you that the hour of eleven on

Monday morning, the thirteenth of May, is only the end of a long

illness, which began on the day when, on the Terrace of

Saint-Germain, you threw me back on my former line of life. The soul

may be sick, as the body is. But the soul cannot submit stupidly to

suffering like the body; the body does not uphold the soul as the

soul upholds the body, and the soul sees a means of cure in the

reflection which leads to the needlewoman’s resource--the bushel

of charcoal. You gave me a whole life the day before yesterday,

when you said that if Clotilde still refused you, you would marry

me. It would have been a great misfortune for us both; I should

have been still more dead, so to speak--for there are more and

less bitter deaths. The world would never have recognized us.

“For two months past I have been thinking of many things, I can

tell you. A poor girl is in the mire, as I was before I went into

the convent; men think her handsome, they make her serve their

pleasure without thinking any consideration necessary; they pack

her off on foot after fetching her in a carriage; if they do not

spit in her face, it is only because her beauty preserves her from

such indignity; but, morally speaking they do worse. Well, and if

this despised creature were to inherit five or six millions of

francs, she would be courted by princes, bowed to with respect as

she went past in her carriage, and might choose among the oldest

names in France and Navarre. That world which would have cried

Raca to us, on seeing two handsome creatures united and happy,

always did honor to Madame de Stael, in spite of her ‘romances in

real life,’ because she had two hundred thousand francs a year.

The world, which grovels before money or glory, will not bow down

before happiness or virtue--for I could have done good. Oh! how

many tears I would have dried--as many as I have shed--I believe!

Yes, I would have lived only for you and for charity.

“These are the thoughts that make death beautiful. So do not

lament, my dear. Say often to yourself, ‘There were two good

creatures, two beautiful creatures, who both died for me

ungrudgingly, and who adored me.’ Keep a memory in your heart of

Coralie and Esther, and go your way and prosper. Do you recollect

the day when you pointed out to me a shriveled old woman, in a

melon-green bonnet and a puce wrapper, all over black

grease-spots, the mistress of a poet before the Revolution, hardly

thawed by the sun though she was sitting against the wall of the

Tuileries and fussing over a pug--the vilest of pugs? She had had

footmen and carriages, you know, and a fine house! And I said to

you then, ‘How much better to be dead at thirty!’--Well, you

thought I was melancholy, and you played all sorts of pranks to

amuse me, and between two kisses I said, ‘Every day some pretty

woman leaves the play before it is over!’--And I do not want to

see the last piece; that is all.

“You must think me a great chatterbox; but this is my last

effusion. I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk

cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying

herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my

return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a

prostitute.

“No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one! If you

could know with what a gush of love I have sat losing myself in

your eyes, looking at them with rapture during a pause I allowed

myself, you would feel as you gathered up the affection with which

I have tried to overlay the ivory, that the soul of your little

pet is indeed there.

“A dead woman craving alms! That is a funny idea.--Come, I must

learn to lie quiet in my grave.

“You have no idea how heroic my death would seem to some fools if

they could know Nucingen last night offered me two millions of

francs if I would love him as I love you. He will be handsomely

robbed when he hears that I have kept my word and died of him. I

tried all I could still to breathe the air you breathe. I said to

the fat scoundrel, ‘Do you want me to love you as you wish? To

promise even that I will never see Lucien again?’--‘What must I

do?’ he asked.--‘Give me the two millions for him.’--You should

have seen his face! I could have laughed, if it had not been so

tragical for me.

“‘Spare yourself the trouble of refusing,’ said I; ‘I see you

care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always

glad to know at what she is valued!’ and I turned my back on him.

“In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest.

“Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!--I will think no

more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to

God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him of

you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death,

and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having

to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if

they are like you.

“Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my

woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther.

“It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to

bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my hand

could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss--and once more

I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the

death of your Esther.”

A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate’s heart as

he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found

written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and the

last effort of a blind affection.

“What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?” thought he,

saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting women.

“If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an

escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon

of Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.,” said he,

addressing the prisoner “you will be released; for the impartiality

demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment

received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she

declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses suspicions as

to her servants, which would seem to point to them as the thieves who

have made off with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the letter

with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that the same

person had written both.

“Monsieur, you were in too great a hurry to believe in a murder; do not

be too hasty in believing in a theft.”

“Heh!” said Camusot, scrutinizing the prisoner with a piercing eye.

“Do not suppose that I am compromising myself by telling you that the

sum may possibly be recovered,” said Jacques Collin, making the judge

understand that he saw his suspicions. “That poor girl was much loved

by those about her; and if I were free, I would undertake to search

for this money, which no doubt belongs to the being I love best in the

world--to Lucien!--Will you allow me to read that letter; it will not

take long? It is evidence of my dear boy’s innocence--you cannot

fear that I shall destroy it--nor that I shall talk about it; I am in

solitary confinement.”

“In confinement! You will be so no longer,” cried the magistrate. “It

is I who must beg you to get well as soon as possible. Refer to your

ambassador if you choose----”

And he handed the letter to Jacques Collin. Camusot was glad to be out

of a difficulty, to be able to satisfy the public prosecutor, Mesdames

de Maufrigneuse and de Serizy. Nevertheless, he studied his prisoner’s

face with cold curiosity while Collin read Esther’s letter; in spite

of the apparent genuineness of the feelings it expressed, he said to

himself:

“But it is a face worthy of the hulks, all the same!”

“That is the way to love!” said Jacques Collin, returning the letter.

And he showed Camusot a face bathed in tears.

“If only you knew him,” he went on, “so youthful, so innocent a soul, so

splendidly handsome, a child, a poet!--The impulse to sacrifice oneself

to him is irresistible, to satisfy his lightest wish. That dear boy is

so fascinating when he chooses----”

“And so,” said the magistrate, making a final effort to discover the

truth, “you cannot possibly be Jacques Collin----”

“No, monsieur,” replied the convict.

And Jacques Collin was more entirely Don Carlos Herrera than ever. In

his anxiety to complete his work he went up to the judge, led him to the

window, and gave himself the airs of a prince of the Church, assuming a

confidential tone:

“I am so fond of that boy, monsieur, that if it were needful, to spare

that idol of my heart a mere discomfort even, that I should be the

criminal you take me for, I would surrender,” said he in an undertone.

“I would follow the example of the poor girl who has killed herself for

his benefit. And I beg you, monsieur, to grant me a favor--namely, to

set Lucien at liberty forthwith.”

“My duty forbids it,” said Camusot very good-naturedly; “but if a sinner

may make a compromise with heaven, justice too has its softer side, and

if you can give me sufficient reasons--speak; your words will not be

taken down.”

“Well, then,” Jacques Collin went on, taken in by Camusot’s apparent

goodwill, “I know what that poor boy is suffering at this moment; he is

capable of trying to kill himself when he finds himself a prisoner----”

“Oh! as to that!” said Camusot with a shrug.

“You do not know whom you will oblige by obliging me,” added Jacques

Collin, trying to harp on another string. “You will be doing a service

to others more powerful than any Comtesse de Serizy or Duchesse de

Maufrigneuse, who will never forgive you for having had their letters in

your chambers----” and he pointed to two packets of perfumed papers. “My

Order has a good memory.”

“Monsieur,” said Camusot, “that is enough. You must find better reasons

to give me. I am as much interested in the prisoner as in public

vengeance.”

“Believe me, then, I know Lucien; he has a soul of a woman, of a poet,

and a southerner, without persistency or will,” said Jacques Collin, who

fancied that he saw that he had won the judge over. “You are convinced

of the young man’s innocence, do not torture him, do not question him.

Give him that letter, tell him that he is Esther’s heir, and restore him

to freedom. If you act otherwise, you will bring despair on yourself;

whereas, if you simply release him, I will explain to you--keep me still

in solitary confinement--to-morrow or this evening, everything that

may strike you as mysterious in the case, and the reasons for the

persecution of which I am the object. But it will be at the risk of my

life, a price has been set on my head these six years past.... Lucien

free, rich, and married to Clotilde de Grandlieu, and my task on earth

will be done; I shall no longer try to save my skin.--My persecutor was

a spy under your late King.”

“What, Corentin?”

“Ah! Is his name Corentin? Thank you, monsieur. Well, will you promise

to do as I ask you?”

“A magistrate can make no promises.--Coquart, tell the usher and the

gendarmes to take the prisoner back to the Conciergerie.--I will give

orders that you are to have a private room,” he added pleasantly, with a

slight nod to the convict.

Struck by Jacques Collin’s request, and remembering how he had insisted

that he wished to be examined first as a privilege to his state of

health, Camusot’s suspicions were aroused once more. Allowing his vague

doubts to make themselves heard, he noticed that the self-styled dying

man was walking off with the strength of a Hercules, having abandoned

all the tricks he had aped so well on appearing before the magistrate.

“Monsieur!”

Jacques Collin turned round.

“Notwithstanding your refusal to sign the document, my clerk will read

you the minutes of your examination.”

The prisoner was evidently in excellent health; the readiness with

which he came back, and sat down by the clerk, was a fresh light to the

magistrate’s mind.

“You have got well very suddenly!” said Camusot.

“Caught!” thought Jacques Collin; and he replied:

“Joy, monsieur, is the only panacea.--That letter, the proof of

innocence of which I had no doubt--these are the grand remedy.”

The judge kept a meditative eye on the prisoner when the usher and the

gendarmes again took him in charge. Then, with a start like a waking

man, he tossed Esther’s letter across to the table where his clerk sat,

saying:

“Coquart, copy that letter.”

If it is natural to man to be suspicious as to some favor required of

him when it is antagonistic to his interests or his duty, and sometimes

even when it is a matter of indifference, this feeling is law to an

examining magistrate. The more this prisoner--whose identity was not yet

ascertained--pointed to clouds on the horizon in the event of Lucien’s

being examined, the more necessary did the interrogatory seem to

Camusot. Even if this formality had not been required by the Code and by

common practice, it was indispensable as bearing on the identification

of the Abbe Carlos. There is in every walk of life the business

conscience. In default of curiosity Camusot would have examined Lucien

as he had examined Jacques Collin, with all the cunning which the most

honest magistrate allows himself to use in such cases. The services he

might render and his own promotion were secondary in Camusot’s mind to

his anxiety to know or guess the truth, even if he should never tell it.

He stood drumming on the window-pane while following the river-like

current of his conjectures, for in these moods thought is like a stream

flowing through many countries. Magistrates, in love with truth, are

like jealous women; they give way to a thousand hypotheses, and probe

them with the dagger-point of suspicion, as the sacrificing priest of

old eviscerated his victims; thus they arrive, not perhaps at truth,

but at probability, and at last see the truth beyond. A woman

cross-questions the man she loves as the judge cross-questions a

criminal. In such a frame of mind, a glance, a word, a tone of voice,

the slightest hesitation is enough to certify the hidden fact--treason

or crime.

“The style in which he depicted his devotion to his son--if he is his

son--is enough to make me think that he was in the girl’s house to keep

an eye on the plunder; and never suspecting that the dead woman’s pillow

covered a will, he no doubt annexed, for his son, the seven hundred and

fifty thousand francs as a precaution. That is why he can promise to

recover the money.

“M. de Rubempre owes it to himself and to justice to account for his

father’s position in the world----

“And he offers me the protection of his Order--His Order!--if I do not

examine Lucien----”

As has been seen, a magistrate conducts an examination exactly as he

thinks proper. He is at liberty to display his acumen or be absolutely

blunt. An examination may be everything or nothing. Therein lies the

favor.

Camusot rang. The usher had returned. He was sent to fetch Monsieur

Lucien de Rubempre with an injunction to prohibit his speaking to

anybody on his way up. It was by this time two in the afternoon.

“There is some secret,” said the judge to himself, “and that secret must

be very important. My amphibious friend--since he is neither priest,

nor secular, nor convict, nor Spaniard, though he wants to hinder his

protege from letting out something dreadful--argues thus: ‘The poet is

weak and effeminate; he is not like me, a Hercules in diplomacy, and you

will easily wring our secret from him.’--Well, we will get everything

out of this innocent.”

And he sat tapping the edge of his table with the ivory paper-knife,

while Coquart copied Esther’s letter.

How whimsical is the action of our faculties! Camusot conceived of every

crime as possible, and overlooked the only one that the prisoner had

now committed--the forgery of the will for Lucien’s advantage. Let those

whose envy vents itself on magistrates think for a moment of their life

spent in perpetual suspicion, of the torments these men must inflict

on their minds, for civil cases are not less tortuous than criminal

examinations, and it will occur to them perhaps that the priest and the

lawyer wear an equally heavy coat of mail, equally furnished with spikes

in the lining. However, every profession has its hair shirt and its

Chinese puzzles.

It was about two o’clock when Monsieur Camusot saw Lucien de Rubempre

come in, pale, worn, his eyes red and swollen, in short, in a state of

dejection which enabled the magistrate to compare nature with art,

the really dying man with the stage performance. His walk from the

Conciergerie to the judge’s chambers, between two gendarmes, and

preceded by the usher, had put the crowning touch to Lucien’s despair.

It is the poet’s nature to prefer execution to condemnation.

As he saw this being, so completely bereft of the moral courage which

is the essence of a judge, and which the last prisoner had so strongly

manifested, Monsieur Camusot disdained the easy victory; and this scorn

enabled him to strike a decisive blow, since it left him, on the ground,

that horrible clearness of mind which the marksman feels when he is

firing at a puppet.

“Collect yourself, Monsieur de Rubempre; you are in the presence of a

magistrate who is eager to repair the mischief done involuntarily by

the law when a man is taken into custody on suspicion that has no

foundation. I believe you to be innocent, and you will soon be at

liberty.--Here is the evidence of your innocence; it is a letter kept

for you during your absence by your porter’s wife; she has just brought

it here. In the commotion caused by the visitation of justice and the

news of your arrest at Fontainebleau, the woman forgot the letter which

was written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck.--Read it!”

Lucien took the letter, read it, and melted into tears. He sobbed, and

could not say a single word. At the end of a quarter of an hour, during

which Lucien with great difficulty recovered his self-command, the clerk

laid before him the copy of the letter and begged him to sign a footnote

certifying that the copy was faithful to the original, and might be

used in its stead “on all occasions in the course of this preliminary

inquiry,” giving him the option of comparing the two; but Lucien, of

course, took Coquart’s word for its accuracy.

“Monsieur,” said the lawyer, with friendly good nature, “it is

nevertheless impossible that I should release you without carrying out

the legal formalities, and asking you some questions.--It is almost as a

witness that I require you to answer. To such a man as you I think it is

almost unnecessary to point out that the oath to tell the whole truth is

not in this case a mere appeal to your conscience, but a necessity for

your own sake, your position having been for a time somewhat ambiguous.

The truth can do you no harm, be it what it may; falsehood will send you

to trial, and compel me to send you back to the Conciergerie; whereas

if you answer fully to my questions, you will sleep to-night in your own

house, and be rehabilitated by this paragraph in the papers: ‘Monsieur

de Rubempre, who was arrested yesterday at Fontainebleau, was set at

liberty after a very brief examination.’”

This speech made a deep impression on Lucien; and the judge, seeing the

temper of his prisoner, added:

“I may repeat to you that you were suspected of being accessory to

the murder by poison of this Demoiselle Esther. Her suicide is clearly

proved, and there is an end of that; but a sum of seven hundred and

fifty thousand francs has been stolen, which she had disposed of

by will, and you are the legatee. This is a felony. The crime was

perpetrated before the discovery of the will.

“Now there is reason to suppose that a person who loves you as much as

you loved Mademoiselle Esther committed the theft for your benefit.--Do

not interrupt me,” Camusot went on, seeing that Lucien was about to

speak, and commanding silence by a gesture; “I am asking you nothing

so far. I am anxious to make you understand how deeply your honor is

concerned in this question. Give up the false and contemptible notion of

the honor binding two accomplices, and tell the whole truth.”

The reader must already have observed the extreme disproportion of the

weapons in this conflict between the prisoner under suspicion and the

examining judge. Absolute denial when skilfully used has in its favor

its positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal; but

it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crushing as soon as the

stiletto of cross-examination finds a joint to it. As soon as mere

denial is ineffectual in face of certain proven facts, the examinee is

entirely at the judge’s mercy.

Now, supposing that a sort of half-criminal, like Lucien, might, if he

were saved from the first shipwreck of his honesty, amend his ways, and

become a useful member of society, he will be lost in the pitfalls of

his examination.

The judge has the driest possible record drawn up of the proceedings, a

faithful analysis of the questions and answers; but no trace remains of

his insidiously paternal addresses or his captious remonstrances, such

as this speech. The judges of the superior courts see the results,

but see nothing of the means. Hence, as some experienced persons have

thought, it would be a good plan that, as in England, a jury should hear

the examination. For a short while France enjoyed the benefit of this

system. Under the Code of Brumaire of the year IV., this body was known

as the examining jury, as distinguished from the trying jury. As to the

final trial, if we should restore the examining jury, it would have to

be the function of the superior courts without the aid of a jury.

“And now,” said Camusot, after a pause, “what is your name?--Attention,

Monsieur Coquart!” said he to the clerk.

“Lucien Chardon de Rubempre.”

“And you were born----?”

“At Angouleme.” And Lucien named the day, month, and year.

“You inherited no fortune?”

“None whatever.”

“And yet, during your first residence in Paris, you spent a great deal,

as compared with your small income?”

“Yes, monsieur; but at that time I had a most devoted friend in

Mademoiselle Coralie, and I was so unhappy as to lose her. It was my

grief at her death that made me return to my country home.”

“That is right, monsieur,” said Camusot; “I commend your frankness; it

will be thoroughly appreciated.”

Lucien, it will be seen, was prepared to make a clean breast of it.

“On your return to Paris you lived even more expensively than before,”

Camusot went on. “You lived like a man who might have about sixty

thousand francs a year.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Who supplied you with the money?”

“My protector, the Abbe Carlos Herrera.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“We met when traveling, just as I was about to be quit of life by

committing suicide.”

“You never heard him spoken of by your family--by your mother?”

“Never.”

“Can you remember the year and the month when you first became connected

with Mademoiselle Esther?”

“Towards the end of 1823, at a small theatre on the Boulevard.”

“At first she was an expense to you?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Lately, in the hope of marrying Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, you

purchased the ruins of the Chateau de Rubempre, you added land to the

value of a million francs, and you told the family of Grandlieu that

your sister and your brother-in-law had just come into a considerable

fortune, and that their liberality had supplied you with the money.--Did

you tell the Grandlieus this, monsieur?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“You do not know the reason why the marriage was broken off?”

“Not in the least, monsieur.”

“Well, the Grandlieus sent one of the most respectable attorneys

in Paris to see your brother-in-law and inquire into the facts.

At Angouleme this lawyer, from the statements of your sister and

brother-in-law, learned that they not only had hardly lent you any

money, but also that their inheritance consisted of land, of some extent

no doubt, but that the whole amount of invested capital was not more

than about two hundred thousand francs.--Now you cannot wonder that such

people as the Grandlieus should reject a fortune of which the source is

more than doubtful. This, monsieur, is what a lie has led to----”

Lucien was petrified by this revelation, and the little presence of mind

he had preserved deserted him.

“Remember,” said Camusot, “that the police and the law know all they

want to know.--And now,” he went on, recollecting Jacques Collin’s

assumed paternity, “do you know who this pretended Carlos Herrera is?”

“Yes, monsieur; but I knew it too late.”

“Too late! How? Explain yourself.”

“He is not a priest, not a Spaniard, he is----”

“An escaped convict?” said the judge eagerly.

“Yes,” replied Lucien, “when he told me the fatal secret, I was

already under obligations to him; I had fancied I was befriended by a

respectable priest.”

“Jacques Collin----” said Monsieur Camusot, beginning a sentence.

“Yes,” said Lucien, “his name is Jacques Collin.”

“Very good. Jacques Collin has just now been identified by another

person, and though he denies it, he does so, I believe, in your

interest. But I asked whether you knew who the man is in order to prove

another of Jacques Collin’s impostures.”

Lucien felt as though he had hot iron in his inside as he heard this

alarming statement.

“Do you not know,” Camusot went on, “that in order to give color to

the extraordinary affection he has for you, he declares that he is your

father?”

“He! My father?--Oh, monsieur, did he tell you that?”

“Have you any suspicion of where the money came from that he used to

give you? For, if I am to believe the evidence of the letter you have

in your hand, that poor girl, Mademoiselle Esther, must have done you

lately the same services as Coralie formerly rendered you. Still, for

some years, as you have just admitted, you lived very handsomely without

receiving anything from her.”

“It is I who should ask you, monsieur, whence convicts get their money!

Jacques Collin my father!--Oh, my poor mother!” and Lucien burst into

tears.

“Coquart, read out to the prisoner that part of Carlos Herrera’s

examination in which he said that Lucien de Rubempre was his son.”

The poet listened in silence, and with a look that was terrible to

behold.

“I am done for!” he cried.

“A man is not done for who is faithful to the path of honor and truth,”

said the judge.

“But you will commit Jacques Collin for trial?” said Lucien.

“Undoubtedly,” said Camusot, who aimed at making Lucien talk. “Speak

out.”

But in spite of all his persuasion and remonstrances, Lucien would say

no more. Reflection had come too late, as it does to all men who are the

slaves of impulse. There lies the difference between the poet and

the man of action; one gives way to feeling to reproduce it in living

images, his judgement comes in after; the other feels and judges both at

once.

Lucien remained pale and gloomy; he saw himself at the bottom of the

precipice, down which the examining judge had rolled him by the apparent

candor which had entrapped his poet’s soul. He had betrayed, not his

benefactor, but an accomplice who had defended their position with the

courage of a lion, and a skill that showed no flaw. Where Jacques Collin

had saved everything by his daring, Lucien, the man of brains, had

lost all by his lack of intelligence and reflection. This infamous lie

against which he revolted had screened a yet more infamous truth.

Utterly confounded by the judge’s skill, overpowered by his cruel

dexterity, by the swiftness of the blows he had dealt him while

making use of the errors of a life laid bare as probes to search his

conscience, Lucien sat like an animal which the butcher’s pole-axe had

failed to kill. Free and innocent when he came before the judge, in a

moment his own avowal had made him feel criminal.

To crown all, as a final grave irony, Camusot, cold and calm,

pointed out to Lucien that his self-betrayal was the result of a

misapprehension. Camusot was thinking of Jacques Collin’s announcing

himself as Lucien’s father; while Lucien, wholly absorbed by his fear of

seeing his confederacy with an escaped convict made public, had imitated

the famous inadvertency of the murderers of Ibycus.

One of Royer-Collard’s most famous achievements was proclaiming the

constant triumph of natural feeling over engrafted sentiments, and

defending the cause of anterior oaths by asserting that the law of

hospitality, for instance, ought to be regarded as binding to the point

of negativing the obligation of a judicial oath. He promulgated this

theory, in the face of the world, from the French tribune; he boldly

upheld conspirators, showing that it was human to be true to friendship

rather than to the tyrannical laws brought out of the social arsenal

to be adjusted to circumstances. And, indeed, natural rights have laws

which have never been codified, but which are more effectual and better

known than those laid down by society. Lucien had misapprehended, to

his cost, the law of cohesion, which required him to be silent and leave

Jacques Collin to protect himself; nay, more, he had accused him. In his

own interests the man ought always to be, to him, Carlos Herrera.

Monsieur Camusot was rejoicing in his triumph; he had secured two

criminals. He had crushed with the hand of justice one of the favorites

of fashion, and he had found the undiscoverable Jacques Collin. He would

be regarded as one of the cleverest of examining judges. So he left his

prisoner in peace; but he was studying this speechless consternation,

and he saw drops of sweat collect on the miserable face, swell and fall,

mingled with two streams of tears.

“Why should you weep, Monsieur de Rubempre? You are, as I have told you,

Mademoiselle Esther’s legatee, she having no heirs nor near relations,

and her property amounts to nearly eight millions of francs if the lost

seven hundred and fifty thousand francs are recovered.”

This was the last blow to the poor wretch. “If you do not lose your head

for ten minutes,” Jacques Collin had said in his note, and Lucien by

keeping cool would have gained all his desire. He might have paid his

debt to Jacques Collin and have cut him adrift, have been rich, and

have married Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. Nothing could more eloquently

demonstrate the power with which the examining judge is armed, as a

consequence of the isolation or separation of persons under suspicion,

or the value of such a communication as Asie had conveyed to Jacques

Collin.

“Ah, monsieur!” replied Lucien, with the satirical bitterness of a man

who makes a pedestal of his utter overthrow, “how appropriate is the

phrase in legal slang ‘to UNDERGO examination.’ For my part, if I had to

choose between the physical torture of past ages and the moral torture

of our day, I would not hesitate to prefer the sufferings inflicted

of old by the executioner.--What more do you want of me?” he added

haughtily.

“In this place, monsieur,” said the magistrate, answering the poet’s

pride with mocking arrogance, “I alone have a right to ask questions.”

“I had the right to refuse to answer them,” muttered the hapless Lucien,

whose wits had come back to him with perfect lucidity.

“Coquart, read the minutes to the prisoner.”

“I am the prisoner once more,” said Lucien to himself.

While the clerk was reading, Lucien came to a determination which

compelled him to smooth down Monsieur Camusot. When Coquart’s drone

ceased, the poet started like a man who has slept through a noise to

which his ears are accustomed, and who is roused by its cessation.

“You have to sign the report of your examination,” said the judge.

“And am I at liberty?” asked Lucien, ironical in his turn.

“Not yet,” said Camusot; “but to-morrow, after being confronted with

Jacques Collin, you will no doubt be free. Justice must now ascertain

whether or no you are accessory to the crimes this man may have

committed since his escape so long ago as 1820. However, you are no

longer in the secret cells. I will write to the Governor to give you a

better room.”

“Shall I find writing materials?”

“You can have anything supplied to you that you ask for; I will give

orders to that effect by the usher who will take you back.”

Lucien mechanically signed the minutes and initialed the notes in

obedience to Coquart’s indications with the meekness of a resigned

victim. A single fact will show what a state he was in better than the

minutest description. The announcement that he would be confronted with

Jacques Collin had at once dried the drops of sweat from his brow, and

his dry eyes glittered with a terrible light. In short, he became, in an

instant as brief as a lightning flash, what Jacques Collin was--a man of

iron.

In men whose nature is like Lucien’s, a nature which Jacques Collin

had so thoroughly fathomed, these sudden transitions from a state of

absolute demoralization to one that is, so to speak, metallic,--so

extreme is the tension of every vital force,--are the most startling

phenomena of mental vitality. The will surges up like the lost waters

of a spring; it diffuses itself throughout the machinery that lies ready

for the action of the unknown matter that constitutes it; and then

the corpse is a man again, and the man rushes on full of energy for a

supreme struggle.

Lucien laid Esther’s letter next his heart, with the miniature she had

returned to him. Then he haughtily bowed to Monsieur Camusot, and went

off with a firm step down the corridors, between two gendarmes.

“That is a deep scoundrel!” said the judge to his clerk, to avenge

himself for the crushing scorn the poet had displayed. “He thought he

might save himself by betraying his accomplice.”

“Of the two,” said Coquart timidly, “the convict is the most

thorough-paced.”

“You are free for the rest of the day, Coquart,” said the lawyer. “We

have done enough. Send away any case that is waiting, to be called

to-morrow.--Ah! and you must go at once to the public prosecutor’s

chambers and ask if he is still there; if so, ask him if he can give me

a few minutes. Yes; he will not be gone,” he added, looking at a common

clock in a wooden case painted green with gilt lines. “It is but a

quarter-past three.”

These examinations, which are so quickly read, being written down at

full length, questions and answers alike, take up an enormous amount of

time. This is one of the reasons of the slowness of these preliminaries

to a trial and of these imprisonments “on suspicion.” To the poor this

is ruin, to the rich it is disgrace; to them only immediate release can

in any degree repair, so far as possible, the disaster of an arrest.

This is why the two scenes here related had taken up the whole of the

time spent by Asie in deciphering her master’s orders, in getting a

Duchess out of her boudoir, and putting some energy into Madame de

Serizy.

At this moment Camusot, who was anxious to get the full benefit of his

cleverness, took the two documents, read them through, and promised

himself that he would show them to the public prosecutor and take his

opinion on them. During this meditation, his usher came back to tell

him that Madame la Comtesse de Serizy’s man-servant insisted on speaking

with him. At a nod from Camusot, a servant out of livery came in, looked

first at the usher, and then at the magistrate, and said, “I have the

honor of speaking to Monsieur Camusot?”

“Yes,” replied the lawyer and his clerk.

Camusot took a note which the servant offered him, and read as

follows:--

“For the sake of many interests which will be obvious to you, my

dear Camusot, do not examine Monsieur de Rubempre. We have brought

ample proofs of his innocence that he may be released forthwith.

“D. DE MAUFRIGNEUSE.

“L. DE SERIZY.

“_P. S._--Burn this note.”

Camusot understood at once that he had blundered preposterously

in laying snares for Lucien, and he began by obeying the two fine

ladies--he lighted a taper, and burned the letter written by the

Duchess. The man bowed respectfully.

“Then Madame de Serizy is coming here?” asked Camusot.

“The carriage is being brought round.”

At this moment Coquart came in to tell Monsieur Camusot that the public

prosecutor expected him.

Oppressed by the blunder he had committed, in view of his ambitions,

though to the better ends of justice, the lawyer, in whom seven years’

experience had perfected the sharpness that comes to a man who in his

practice has had to measure his wits against the grisettes of Paris,

was anxious to have some shield against the resentment of two women of

fashion. The taper in which he had burned the note was still alight,

and he used it to seal up the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse’s notes to

Lucien--about thirty in all--and Madame de Serizy’s somewhat voluminous

correspondence.

Then he waited on the public prosecutor.

The Palais de Justice is a perplexing maze of buildings piled one above

another, some fine and dignified, others very mean, the whole disfigured

by its lack of unity. The _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ is the largest known

hall, but its nakedness is hideous, and distresses the eye. This vast

Cathedral of the Law crushes the Supreme Court. The Galerie Marchande

ends in two drain-like passages. From this corridor there is a double

staircase, a little larger than that of the Criminal Courts, and under

it a large double door. The stairs lead down to one of the Assize

Courts, and the doors open into another. In some years the number

of crimes committed in the circuit of the Seine is great enough to

necessitate the sitting of two Benches.

Close by are the public prosecutor’s offices, the attorney’s room and

library, the chambers of the attorney-general, and those of the public

prosecutor’s deputies. All these purlieus, to use a generic term,

communicate by narrow spiral stairs and the dark passages, which are a

disgrace to the architecture not of Paris only, but of all France.

The interior arrangement of the sovereign court of justice outdoes our

prisons in all that is most hideous. The writer describing our manners

and customs would shrink from the necessity of depicting the squalid

corridor of about a metre in width, in which the witnesses wait in the

Superior Criminal Court. As to the stove which warms the court itself,

it would disgrace a cafe on the Boulevard Mont-Parnasse.

The public prosecutor’s private room forms part of an octagon wing

flanking the Galerie Marchande, built out recently in regard to the age

of the structure, over the prison yard, outside the women’s quarters.

All this part of the Palais is overshadowed by the lofty and noble

edifice of the Sainte-Chapelle. And all is solemn and silent.

Monsieur de Granville, a worthy successor of the great magistrates of

the ancient Parlement, would not leave Paris without coming to some

conclusion in the matter of Lucien. He expected to hear from Camusot,

and the judge’s message had plunged him into the involuntary suspense

which waiting produces on even the strongest minds. He had been sitting

in the window-bay of his private room; he rose, and walked up and down,

for having lingered in the morning to intercept Camusot, he had found

him dull of apprehension; he was vaguely uneasy and worried.

And this was why.

The dignity of his high functions forbade his attempting to fetter the

perfect independence of the inferior judge, and yet this trial

nearly touched the honor and good name of his best friend and warmest

supporter, the Comte de Serizy, Minister of State, member of the Privy

Council, Vice-President of the State Council, and prospective Chancellor

of the Realm, in the event of the death of the noble old man who held

that august office. It was Monsieur de Serizy’s misfortune to adore

his wife “through fire and water,” and he always shielded her with his

protection. Now the public prosecutor fully understood the terrible fuss

that would be made in the world and at court if a crime should be proved

against a man whose name had been so often and so malignantly linked

with that of the Countess.

“Ah!” he sighed, folding his arms, “formerly the supreme authority could

take refuge in an appeal. Nowadays our mania for equality”--he dared

not say _for Legality_, as a poetic orator in the Chamber courageously

admitted a short while since--“is the death of us.”

This noble magistrate knew all the fascination and the miseries of an

illicit attachment. Esther and Lucien, as we have seen, had taken the

rooms where the Comte de Granville had lived secretly on connubial terms

with Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, and whence she had fled one day,

lured away by a villain. (See _A Double Marriage_.)

At the very moment when the public prosecutor was saying to himself,

“Camusot is sure to have done something silly,” the examining magistrate

knocked twice at the door of his room.

“Well, my dear Camusot, how is that case going on that I spoke of this

morning?”

“Badly, Monsieur le Comte; read and judge for yourself.”

He held out the minutes of the two examinations to Monsieur de

Granville, who took up his eyeglass and went to the window to read them.

He had soon run through them.

“You have done your duty,” said the Count in an agitated voice. “It is

all over. The law must take its course. You have shown so much skill,

that you need never fear being deprived of your appointment as examining

judge---”

If Monsieur de Granville had said to Camusot, “You will remain an

examining judge to your dying day,” he could not have been more explicit

than in making this polite speech. Camusot was cold in the very marrow.

“Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, to whom I owe much, had desired

me...”

“Oh yes, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse is Madame de Serizy’s friend,”

said Granville, interrupting him. “To be sure.--You have allowed nothing

to influence you, I perceive. And you did well, sir; you will be a great

magistrate.”

At this instant the Comte Octave de Bauvan opened the door without

knocking, and said to the Comte de Granville:

“I have brought you a fair lady, my dear fellow, who did not know

which way to turn; she was on the point of losing herself in our

labyrinth----”

And Comte Octave led in by the hand the Comtesse de Serizy, who had been

wandering about the place for the last quarter of an hour.

“What, you here, madame!” exclaimed the public prosecutor, pushing

forward his own armchair, “and at this moment! This, madame, is Monsieur

Camusot,” he added, introducing the judge.--“Bauvan,” said he to the

distinguished ministerial orator of the Restoration, “wait for me in the

president’s chambers; he is still there, and I will join you.”

Comte Octave de Bauvan understood that not merely was he in the way, but

that Monsieur de Granville wanted an excuse for leaving his room.

Madame de Serizy had not made the mistake of coming to the Palais

de Justice in her handsome carriage with a blue hammer-cloth and

coats-of-arms, her coachman in gold lace, and two footmen in breeches

and silk stockings. Just as they were starting Asie impressed on the two

great ladies the need for taking the hackney coach in which she and the

Duchess had arrived, and she had likewise insisted on Lucien’s mistress

adopting the costume which is to women what a gray cloak was of yore to

men. The Countess wore a plain brown dress, an old black shawl, and a

velvet bonnet from which the flowers had been removed, and the whole

covered up under a thick lace veil.

“You received our note?” said she to Camusot, whose dismay she mistook

for respectful admiration.

“Alas! but too late, Madame la Comtesse,” replied the lawyer, whose

tact and wit failed him excepting in his chambers and in presence of a

prisoner.

“Too late! How?”

She looked at Monsieur de Granville, and saw consternation written in

his face. “It cannot be, it must not be too late!” she added, in the

tone of a despot.

Women, pretty women, in the position of Madame de Serizy, are the

spoiled children of French civilization. If the women of other countries

knew what a woman of fashion is in Paris, a woman of wealth and rank,

they would all want to come and enjoy that splendid royalty. The women

who recognize no bonds but those of propriety, no law but the petty

charter which has been more than once alluded to in this _Comedie

Humaine_ as the ladies’ Code, laugh at the statutes framed by men. They

say everything, they do not shrink from any blunder or hesitate at any

folly, for they all accept the fact that they are irresponsible

beings, answerable for nothing on earth but their good repute and their

children. They say the most preposterous things with a laugh, and are

ready on every occasion to repeat the speech made in the early days of

her married life by pretty Madame de Bauvan to her husband, whom she

came to fetch away from the Palais: “Make haste and pass sentence, and

come away.”

“Madame,” said the public prosecutor, “Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre is

not guilty either of robbery or of poisoning; but Monsieur Camusot has

led him to confess a still greater crime.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“He acknowledged,” said Monsieur Camusot in her ear, “that he is the

friend and pupil of an escaped convict. The Abbe Carlos Herrera, the

Spaniard with whom he has been living for the last seven years, is the

notorious Jacques Collin.”

Madame de Serizy felt as if it were a blow from an iron rod at each word

spoken by the judge, but this name was the finishing stroke.

“And the upshot of all this?” she said, in a voice that was no more than

a breath.

“Is,” Monsieur de Granville went on, finishing the Countess’ sentence in

an undertone, “that the convict will be committed for trial, and that if

Lucien is not committed with him as having profited as an accessory

to the man’s crimes, he must appear as a witness very seriously

compromised.”

“Oh! never, never!” she cried aloud, with amazing firmness. “For my

part, I should not hesitate between death and the disaster of seeing

a man whom the world has known to be my dearest friend declared by the

bench to be the accomplice of a convict.--The King has a great regard

for my husband----”

“Madame,” said the public prosecutor, also aloud, and with a smile, “the

King has not the smallest power over the humblest examining judge in his

kingdom, nor over the proceedings in any court of justice. That is the

grand feature of our new code of laws. I myself have just congratulated

M. Camusot on his skill----”

“On his clumsiness,” said the Countess sharply, though Lucien’s intimacy

with a scoundrel really disturbed her far less than his attachment to

Esther.

“If you will read the minutes of the examination of the two prisoners by

Monsieur Camusot, you will see that everything is in his hands----”

After this speech, the only thing the public prosecutor could venture to

say, and a flash of feminine--or, if you will, lawyer-like--cunning, he

went to the door; then, turning round on the threshold, he added:

“Excuse me, madame; I have two words to say to Bauvan.” Which,

translated by the worldly wise, conveyed to the Countess: “I do not want

to witness the scene between you and Camusot.”

“What is this examination business?” said Leontine very blandly to

Camusot, who stood downcast in the presence of the wife of one of the

most important personages in the realm.

“Madame,” said Camusot, “a clerk writes down all the magistrate’s

questions and the prisoner’s replies. This document is signed by the

clerk, by the judge, and by the prisoner. This evidence is the raw

material of the subsequent proceedings; on it the accused are committed

for trial, and remanded to appear before the Criminal Court.”

“Well, then,” said she, “if the evidence were suppressed----?”

“Oh, madame, that is a crime which no magistrate could possibly

commit--a crime against society.”

“It is a far worse crime against me to have ever allowed it to be

recorded; still, at this moment it is the only evidence against Lucien.

Come, read me the minutes of his examination that I may see if there is

still a way of salvation for us all, monsieur. I do not speak for myself

alone--I should quite calmly kill myself--but Monsieur de Serizy’s

happiness is also at stake.”

“Pray, madame, do not suppose that I have forgotten the respect due

you,” said Camusot. “If Monsieur Popinot, for instance, had undertaken

this case, you would have had worse luck than you have found with me;

for he would not have come to consult Monsieur de Granville; no one

would have heard anything about it. I tell you, madame, everything has

been seized in Monsieur Lucien’s lodging, even your letters----”

“What! my letters!”

“Here they are, madame, in a sealed packet.”

The Countess in her agitation rang as if she had been at home, and the

office-boy came in.

“A light,” said she.

The boy lighted a taper and placed it on the chimney-piece, while the

Countess looked through the letters, counted them, crushed them in her

hand, and flung them on the hearth. In a few minutes she set the whole

mass in a blaze, twisting up the last note to serve as a torch.

Camusot stood, looking rather foolish as he watched the papers burn,

holding the legal documents in his hand. The Countess, who seemed

absorbed in the work of destroying the proofs of her passion, studied

him out of the corner of her eye. She took her time, she calculated

her distance; with the spring of a cat she seized the two documents and

threw them on the flames. But Camusot saved them; the Countess rushed

on him and snatched back the burning papers. A struggle ensued, Camusot

calling out: “Madame, but madame! This is contempt--madame!”

A man hurried into the room, and the Countess could not repress a scream

as she beheld the Comte de Serizy, followed by Monsieur de Granville and

the Comte de Bauvan. Leontine, however, determined to save Lucien at

any cost, would not let go of the terrible stamped documents, which she

clutched with the tenacity of a vise, though the flame had already burnt

her delicate skin like a moxa.

At last Camusot, whose fingers also were smarting from the fire, seemed

to be ashamed of the position; he let the papers go; there was nothing

left of them but the portions so tightly held by the antagonists that

the flame could not touch them. The whole scene had taken less time than

is needed to read this account of it.

“What discussion can have arisen between you and Madame de Serizy?” the

husband asked of Camusot.

Before the lawyer could reply, the Countess held the fragments in the

candle and threw them on the remains of her letters, which were not

entirely consumed.

“I shall be compelled,” said Camusot, “to lay a complaint against Madame

la Comtesse----”

“Heh! What has she done?” asked the public prosecutor, looking

alternately at the lady and the magistrate.

“I have burned the record of the examinations,” said the lady of fashion

with a laugh, so pleased at her high-handed conduct that she did not yet

feel the pain of the burns, “If that is a crime--well, monsieur must get

his odious scrawl written out again.”

“Very true,” said Camusot, trying to recover his dignity.

“Well, well, ‘All’s well that ends well,’” said Monsieur de Granville.

“But, my dear Countess, you must not often take such liberties with the

Law; it might fail to discern who and what you are.”

“Monsieur Camusot valiantly resisted a woman whom none can resist; the

Honor of the Robe is safe!” said the Comte de Bauvan, laughing.

“Indeed! Monsieur Camusot was resisting?” said the public prosecutor,

laughing too. “He is a brave man indeed; I should not dare resist the

Countess.”

And thus for the moment this serious affair was no more than a pretty

woman’s jest, at which Camusot himself must laugh.

But Monsieur de Granville saw one man who was not amused. Not a little

alarmed by the Comte de Serizy’s attitude and expression, his friend led

him aside.

“My dear fellow,” said he in a whisper, “your distress persuades me for

the first and only time in my life to compromise with my duty.”

The public prosecutor rang, and the office-boy appeared.

“Desire Monsieur de Chargeboeuf to come here.”

Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, a sucking barrister, was his private secretary.

“My good friend,” said the Comte de Granville to Camusot, whom he took

to the window, “go back to your chambers, get your clerk to reconstruct

the report of the Abbe Carlos Herrera’s depositions; as he had not

signed the first copy, there will be no difficulty about that. To-morrow

you must confront your Spanish diplomate with Rastignac and Bianchon,

who will not recognize him as Jacques Collin. Then, being sure of his

release, the man will sign the document.

“As to Lucien de Rubempre, set him free this evening; he is not likely

to talk about an examination of which the evidence is destroyed,

especially after such a lecture as I shall give him.

“Now you will see how little justice suffers by these proceedings. If

the Spaniard really is the convict, we have fifty ways of recapturing

him and committing him for trial--for we will have his conduct in Spain

thoroughly investigated. Corentin, the police agent, will take care

of him for us, and we ourselves will keep an eye on him. So treat him

decently; do not send him down to the cells again.

“Can we be the death of the Comte and Comtesse de Serizy, as well as of

Lucien, for the theft of seven hundred and fifty thousand francs as yet

unproven, and to Lucien’s personal loss? Will it not be better for him

to lose the money than to lose his character? Above all, if he is to

drag with him in his fall a Minister of State, and his wife, and the

Duchesse du Maufrigneuse.

“This young man is a speckled orange; do not leave it to rot.

“All this will take you about half an hour; go and get it done; we will

wait for you. It is half-past three; you will find some judges about.

Let me know if you can get a rule of insufficient evidence--or Lucien

must wait till to-morrow morning.”

Camusot bowed to the company and went; but Madame de Serizy, who was

suffering a good deal from her burns, did not return his bow.

Monsieur de Serizy, who had suddenly rushed away while the public

prosecutor and the magistrate were talking together, presently returned,

having fetched a small jar of virgin wax. With this he dressed his

wife’s fingers, saying in an undertone:

“Leontine, why did you come here without letting me know?”

“My dear,” replied she in a whisper, “forgive me. I seem mad, but indeed

your interests were as much involved as mine.”

“Love this young fellow if fatality requires it, but do not display your

passion to all the world,” said the luckless husband.

“Well, my dear Countess,” said Monsieur de Granville, who had been

engaged in conversation with Comte Octave, “I hope you may take Monsieur

de Rubempre home to dine with you this evening.”

This half promise produced a reaction; Madame de Serizy melted into

tears.

“I thought I had no tears left,” said she with a smile. “But could you

not bring Monsieur de Rubempre to wait here?”

“I will try if I can find the ushers to fetch him, so that he may not be

seen under the escort of the gendarmes,” said Monsieur de Granville.

“You are as good as God!” cried she, with a gush of feeling that made

her voice sound like heavenly music.

“These are the women,” said Comte Octave, “who are fascinating,

irresistible!”

And he became melancholy as he thought of his own wife. (See

_Honorine_.)

As he left the room, Monsieur de Granville was stopped by young

Chargeboeuf, to whom he spoke to give him instructions as to what he was

to say to Massol, one of the editors of the _Gazette des Tribunaux_.

While beauties, ministers, and magistrates were conspiring to save

Lucien, this was what he was doing at the Conciergerie. As he passed

the gate the poet told the keeper that Monsieur Camusot had granted

him leave to write, and he begged to have pens, ink, and paper. At

a whispered word to the Governor from Camusot’s usher a warder was

instructed to take them to him at once. During the short time that it

took for the warder to fetch these things and carry them up to Lucien,

the hapless young man, to whom the idea of facing Jacques Collin had

become intolerable, sank into one of those fatal moods in which the idea

of suicide--to which he had yielded before now, but without succeeding

in carrying it out--rises to the pitch of mania. According to certain

mad-doctors, suicide is in some temperaments the closing phase of mental

aberration; and since his arrest Lucien had been possessed by that

single idea. Esther’s letter, read and reread many times, increased the

vehemence of his desire to die by reminding him of the catastrophe of

Romeo dying to be with Juliet.