After this important evidence the trial was suspended for a few minutes.
When the judges returned Edmee was brought back into the court. Pale and
weak, scarcely able to drag herself to the arm-chair which was reserved
for her, she nevertheless displayed considerable mental vigour and
presence of mind.
“Do you think you can answer the questions which will be put to you
without unduly exciting yourself?” asked the president.
“I hope so, sir,” she replied. “It is true that I have recently been
seriously ill, and that it is only within the last few days that I have
recovered my memory; but I believe I have completely recovered it, and
my mind feels quite clear.”
“Your name?”
“Solange-Edmonde de Mauprat; _Edmea sylvestris_,” she added in an
undertone.
I shuddered. As she said these unseasonable words her eyes had assumed
a strange expression. I feared that her mind was going to wander still
further. My counsel was also alarmed and looked at me inquiringly. No
one but myself had understood these two words which Edmee had been in
the habit of frequently repeating during the first and last days of
her illness. Happily this was the last sign of any disturbance in
her faculties. She shook her beautiful head, as if to drive out
any troublesome ideas; and, the president having asked her for an
explanation of these unintelligible words, she replied with sweetness
and dignity:
“It is nothing, sir. Please continue my examination.”
“Your age, mademoiselle?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Are you related to the prisoner?”
“He is my second cousin, and my father’s grand-nephew.”
“Do you swear to speak the truth, the whole truth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Raise your hand.”
Edmee turned towards Arthur with a sad smile. He took off her glove, and
helped to raise her arm, which hung nerveless and powerless by her side.
I felt big tears rolling down my cheeks.
With delicacy and simplicity Edmee related how she and I had lost our
way in the woods; how I, under the impression that her horse had bolted,
had unseated her in my eager anxiety to stop the animal; how a slight
altercation had ensued, after which, with a little feminine temper,
foolish enough, she had wished to mount her mare again without help; how
she had even spoken unkindly to me, not meaning a word of what she said,
for she loved me like a brother; how, deeply hurt by her harshness, I
had moved away a few yards to obey her; and how, just as she was about
to follow me, grieved herself at our childish quarrel, she had felt a
violent shock in her breast, and had fallen almost without hearing any
report. It was impossible for her to say in which direction she was
looking, or from which side the shot had come.
“That is all that happened,” she added. “Of all people I am least
able to explain this occurrence. In my soul and conscience I can only
attribute it to the carelessness of one of the hunting party, who is
afraid to confess. Laws are so severe. And it is so difficult to prove
the truth.”
“So, mademoiselle, you do not think that your cousin was the author of
this attempt?”
“No, sir, certainly not! I am no longer delirious, and I should not have
let myself be brought before you if I had felt that my mind was at all
weak.”
“Apparently, then, you consider that a state of mental aberration was
responsible for the revelations you made to Patience, to Mademoiselle
Leblanc, your companion, and also, perhaps, to Abbe Aubert.”
“I made no revelations,” she replied emphatically, “either to the worthy
Patience, the venerable abbe, or my servant Leblanc. If the meaningless
words we utter in a state of delirium are to be called ‘revelations,’
all the people who frighten us in our dreams would have to be condemned
to death. How could I have revealed facts of which I never had any
knowledge?”
“But at the time you received the wound, and fell from your horse, you
said: ‘Bernard, Bernard! I should never have thought that you would kill
me!’”
“I do not remember having said so; and, even if I did, I cannot conceive
that any one would attach much importance to the impressions of a
person who had suddenly been struck to the ground, and whose mind was
annihilated, as it were. All that I know is that Bernard de Mauprat
would lay down his life for my father or myself; which does not make it
very probable that he wanted to murder me. Great God! what would be his
object?”
In order to embarrass Edmee, the president now utilized all the
arguments which could be drawn from Mademoiselle Leblanc’s evidence. As
a fact, they were calculated to cause her not a little confusion.
Edmee, who was at first somewhat astonished to find that the law was in
possession of so many details which she believed were unknown to others,
regained her courage and pride, however, when they suggested, in those
brutally chaste terms which are used by the law in such a case, that she
had been a victim of my violence at Roche-Mauprat. Her spirit thoroughly
roused, she proceeded to defend my character and her own honour, and
declared that, considering how I had been brought up, I had behaved
much more honourably than might have been expected. But she still had
to explain all her life from this point onward, the breaking off of her
engagement with M. de la Marche, her frequent quarrels with myself, my
sudden departure for America, her refusal of all offers of marriage.
“All these questions are abominable,” she said, rising suddenly, her
physical strength having returned with the exercise of her mental
powers. “You ask me to give an account of my inmost feelings; you would
sound the mysteries of my soul; you put my modesty on the rack; you
would take to yourself rights that belong only to God. I declare to you
that, if my own life were now at stake and not another’s, you should not
extract a word more from me. However, to save the life of the meanest of
men I would overcome my repugnance; much more, therefore, will I do for
him who is now at the bar. Know then--since you force me to a confession
which is painful to the pride and reserve of my sex--that everything
which to you seems inexplicable in my conduct, everything which you
attribute to Bernard’s persecutions and my own resentment, to his
threats and my terror, finds its justification in one word: I love him!”
On uttering this word, the red blood in her cheeks, and in the ringing
tone of the proudest and most passionate soul that ever existed, Edmee
sat down again and buried her face in her hands. At this moment I was so
transported that I could not help crying out:
“Let them take me to the scaffold now; I am king of all the earth!”
“To the scaffold! You!” said Edmee, rising again. “Let them rather take
me. Is it your fault, poor boy, if for seven years I have hidden from
you the secret of my affections; if I did not wish you to know it until
you were the first of men in wisdom and intelligence as you are already
the first in greatness of heart? You are paying dearly for my ambition,
since it has been interpreted as scorn and hatred. You have good reason
to hate me, since my pride has brought you to the felon’s dock. But I
will wash away your shame by a signal reparation; though they send you
to the scaffold, you shall go there with the title of my husband.”
“Your generosity is carrying you too far, Edmee de Mauprat,” said the
president. “It would seem that, in order to save your relative, you are
accusing yourself of coquetry and unkindness; for, how otherwise do
you explain the fact that you exasperated this young man’s passion by
refusing him for seven years?”
“Perhaps, sir,” replied Edmee archly, “the court is not competent to
judge this matter. Many women think it no great crime to show a little
coquetry with the man they love. Perhaps we have a right to this when
we have sacrificed all other men to him. After all, it is a very natural
and very innocent ambition to make the man of one’s choice feel that
one is a soul of some price, that one is worth wooing, and worth a long
effort. True, if this coquetry resulted in the condemnation of one’s
lover to death, one would speedily correct one’s self of it. But,
naturally, gentlemen, you would not think of atoning for my cruelty by
offering the poor young man such a consolation as this.”
After saying these words in an animated, ironical tone, Edmee burst
into tears. This nervous sensibility which brought to the front all the
qualities of her soul and mind, tenderness, courage, delicacy, pride,
modesty, gave her face at the same time an expression so varied, so
winning in all its moods, that the grave, sombre assembly of judges let
fall the brazen cuirass of impassive integrity and the leaden cope of
hypocritical virtue. If Edmee had not triumphantly defended me by her
confession, she had at least roused the greatest interest in my favour.
A man who is loved by a beautiful woman carries with him a talisman that
makes him invulnerable; all feel that his life is of greater value than
other lives.
Edmee still had to submit to many questions; she set in their proper
light the facts which had been misrepresented by Mademoiselle Leblanc.
True, she spared me considerably; but with admirable skill she managed
to elude certain questions, and so escaped the necessity of either lying
or condemning me. She generously took upon herself the blame for all
my offences, and pretended that, if we had had various quarrels, it
was because she herself took a secret pleasure in them; because they
revealed the depth of my love; that she had let me go to America to put
my virtue to the proof, thinking that the campaign would not last more
than a year, as was then supposed; that afterwards she had considered me
in honour bound to submit to the indefinite prolongation, but that
she had suffered more than myself from my absence; finally, she quite
remembered the letter which had been found upon her, and, taking it up,
she gave the mutilated passages with astonishing accuracy, and at the
same time called the clerk to follow as she deciphered the words which
were half obliterated.
“This letter was so far from being a threatening letter,” she said, “and
the impression it left on me was so far from filling me with fear or
aversion, that it was found on my heart, where I had been carrying it
for a week, though I had not even let Bernard know that I had received
it.”
“But you have not yet explained,” said the president, “how it was that
seven years ago, when your cousin first came to live in your house,
you armed yourself with a knife which you used to put under your pillow
every night, after having it sharpened as if to defend yourself in case
of need.”
“In my family,” she answered with a blush, “we have a somewhat romantic
temperament and a very proud spirit. It is true that I frequently
thought of killing myself, because I felt an unconquerable affection
for my cousin springing up in me. Believing myself bound by indissoluble
ties to M. de la Marche. I would have died rather than break my word, or
marry any other than Bernard. Subsequently M. de la Marche freed me from
my promise with much delicacy and loyalty, and I no longer thought of
dying.”
Edmee now withdrew, followed by all eyes and by a murmur of approbation.
No sooner had she passed out of the hall than she fainted again; but
this attack was without any grave consequences, and left no traces after
a few days.
I was so bewildered, so intoxicated by what she had just said, that
henceforth I could scarcely see what was taking place around me. Wholly
wrapped up in thoughts of my love, I nevertheless could not cast aside
all doubts; for, if Edmee had been silent about some of my actions, it
was also possible that she had exaggerated her affection for me in the
hope of extenuating my faults. I could not bring myself to think that
she had loved me before my departure for America, and, above all, from
the very beginning of my stay at Sainte-Severe. This was the one thought
that filled my mind; I did not even remember anything further about the
case or the object of my trial. It seemed to me that the sole question
at issue in this chill Areopagus was this: Is he loved, or is he not?
For me, victory or defeat, life or death, hung on that, and that alone.
I was roused from these reveries by the voice of Abbe Aubert. He was
thin and wasted, but seemed perfectly calm; he had been kept in solitary
confinement and had suffered all the hardships of prison life with the
resignation of a martyr. In spite, however, of all precautions, the
clever Marcasse, who could work his way anywhere like a ferret, had
managed to convey to him a letter from Arthur, to which Edmee had added
a few words. Authorized by this letter to say everything, he made a
statement similar to that made by Patience, and owned that Edmee’s first
words after the occurrence had made him believe me guilty; but that
subsequently, seeing the patient’s mental condition, and remembering my
irreproachable behaviour for more than six years, and obtaining a little
new light from the preceding trial and the public rumours about the
possible existence of Antony Mauprat, he had felt too convinced of my
innocence to be willing to give evidence which might injure me. If
he gave his evidence now, it was because he thought that further
investigations might have enlightened the court, and that his words
would not have the serious consequences they might have had a month
before.
Questioned as to Edmee’s feelings for me, he completely destroyed all
Mademoiselle Leblanc’s inventions, and declared that not only did Edmee
love me ardently, but that she had felt an affection for me from the
very first day we met. This he affirmed on oath, though emphasizing my
past misdeeds somewhat more than Edmee had done. He owned that at first
he had frequently feared that my cousin would be foolish enough to marry
me, but that he had never had any fear for her life, since he had always
seen her reduce me to submission by a single word or a mere look, even
in my most boorish days.
The continuation of the trial was postponed to await the results of the
warrants issued for the arrest of the assassin. People compared my trial
to that of Calas, and the comparison had no sooner become a general
topic of conversation than my judges, finding themselves exposed to a
thousand shafts, realized very vividly that hatred and prejudice are bad
counsellors and dangerous guides. The sheriff of the province declared
himself the champion of my cause and Edmee’s knight, and he himself
escorted her back to her father. He set all the police agog. They acted
with vigour and arrested John Mauprat. When he found himself a prisoner
and threatened, he betrayed his brother, and declared that they might
find him any night at Roche-Mauprat, hiding in a secret chamber which
the tenant’s wife helped him to reach, without her husband’s knowledge.
They took the Trappist to Roche-Mauprat under a good escort, so that he
might show them this secret chamber, which, in spite of his genius
for exploring walls and timber-work, the old pole-cat hunter and
mole-catcher Marcasse had never managed to reach. They took me there,
likewise, so that I might help to find this room or passage leading
to it, in case the Trappist should repent of his present sincere
intentions. Once again, then, I revisited this abhorred manor with the
ancient chief of the brigands transformed into a Trappist. He showed
himself so humble and cringing in my presence, he made so light of his
brother’s life, and expressed such abject submission that I was filled
with disgust, and after a few moments begged him not to speak to me any
more. Keeping in touch with the mounted police outside, we began our
search for the secret chamber. At first John had pretended that he
knew of its existence, without knowing its exact location now that
three-quarters of the keep had been destroyed. When he saw me, however,
he remembered that I had surprised him in my room, and that he had
disappeared through the wall. He resigned himself, therefore, to taking
us to it, and showing us the secret; this was very curious; but I will
not amuse myself by giving you an account of it. The secret chamber was
opened; no one was there. Yet the expedition had been made with despatch
and secrecy. It did not appear probable that John had had time to warn
his brother. The keep was surrounded by the police and all the doors
were well guarded. The night was dark, and our invasion had filled all
the inmates of the farm with terror. The tenant had no idea what we were
looking for, but his wife’s agitation and anxiety seemed a sure sign
that Antony was still in the keep. She had not sufficient presence of
mind to assume a reassured air after we had explored the first room, and
that made Marcasse think that there must be a second. Did the Trappist
know of this, and was he pretending ignorance? He played his part so
well that we were all deceived. We set to work to explore all the nooks
and corners of the ruins again. There was one large tower standing apart
from the other buildings; it did not seem as if this could offer any
one a refuge. The staircase had completely fallen in at the time of the
fire, and there could not be found a ladder long enough to reach the
top story; even the farmer’s ladders tied together with ropes were too
short. This top story seemed to be in a state of good preservation and
to contain a room lighted by two loopholes. Marcasse, after examining
the thickness of the wall, affirmed that there might be a staircase
inside, such as might be found in many an old tower. But where was the
exit? Perhaps it was connected with some subterranean passage. Would the
assassin dare to issue from his retreat as long as we were there? If, in
spite of the darkness of the night and the silence of our proceedings,
he had got wind of our presence, would he venture into the open as long
as we continued on the watch at all points?
“That is not probable,” said Marcasse. “We must devise some speedy means
of getting up there; and I see one.”
He pointed to a beam at a frightful height, all blackened by the fire,
and running from the tower over a space of some twenty feet to the
garrets of the nearest building. At the end of this beam there was
a large gap in the wall of the tower caused by the falling-in of the
adjoining parts. In his explorations, indeed, Marcasse had fancied that
he could see the steps of a narrow staircase through this gap. The wall,
moreover, was quite thick enough to contain one. The mole-catcher had
never cared to risk his life on this beam; not that he was afraid of
its narrowness or its height; he was accustomed to these perilous
“crossings,” as he called them; but the beam had been partly consumed
by the fire and was so thin in the middle that it was impossible to say
whether it would bear the weight of a man, even were he as slender
and diaphanous as the worthy sergeant. Up to the present nothing had
happened here of sufficient importance for him to risk his life in
the experiment. Now, however, the case was different. Marcasse did not
hesitate. I was not near him when he formed his plan; I should have
dissuaded him from it at all costs. I was not aware of it until he had
already reached the middle of the beam, the spot where the burnt wood
was perhaps nothing more than charcoal. How shall I describe to you
what I felt when I beheld my faithful friend in mid-air, gravely walking
toward his goal? Blaireau was trotting in front of him as calmly as in
the old days when it was a question of hunting through bundles of hay in
search of stoats and dormice. Day was breaking, and the hildalgo’s slim
outline and his modest yet stately bearing could be clearly seen against
the gray sky. I put my hands to my face; I seemed to hear the fatal beam
cracking; I stifled a cry of terror lest I should unnerve him at this
solemn and critical moment. But I could not suppress this cry, or help
raising my head when I heard two shots fired from the tower. Marcasse’s
hat fell at the first shot; the second grazed his shoulder. He stopped a
moment.
“Not touched!” he shouted at us.
And making a rush he was quickly across the aerial bridge. He got into
the tower through the gap and darted up the stairs, crying:
“Follow me, my lads! The beam will bear.”
Immediately five other bold and active men who had accompanied him got
astride upon the beam, and with the help of their hands reached the
other end one by one. When the first of them arrived in the garret
whither Antony Mauprat had fled, he found him grappling with Marcasse,
who, quite carried away by his triumph and forgetting that it was not a
question of killing an enemy but of capturing him, set about lunging
at him with his long rapier as if he had been a weasel. But the sham
Trappist was a formidable enemy. He had snatched the sword from the
sergeant’s hands, hurled him to the ground, and would have strangled
him had not a gendarme thrown himself on him from behind. With his
prodigious strength he held his own against the first three assailants;
but, with the help of the other two, they succeeded in overcoming him.
When he saw that he was caught he made no further resistance and let his
hands be bound together. They brought him down the stairs, which were
found to lead to the bottom of a dry well in the middle of the tower.
Antony was in the habit of leaving and entering by means of a ladder
which the farmer’s wife held for him and immediately afterwards
withdrew. In a transport of delight I threw myself into my sergeant’s
arms.
“A mere trifle,” he said; “enjoyed it. I found that my foot was still
sure and my head cool. Ha! ha! old sergeant,” he added, looking at his
leg, “old hidalgo, old mole-catcher, after this they won’t make so many
jokes about your calves!”