“Well, here we are now before the court at Sauveterre, before a jury
composed of people from this district, incapable of prevarication, I
am sure, but, unfortunately, under the influence of that public opinion
which has long since condemned M. de Boiscoran. The proceedings begin;
the judge questions the accused. Will he say what he told me,--that,
after having been the lover of the Countess Claudieuse, he had gone to
Valpinson to carry her back her letters, and to get his own, and that
they are all burnt? Suppose he says so. Immediately then there will
arise a storm of indignation; and he will be overwhelmed with curses
and with contempt. Well, thereupon, the president of the court uses his
discretionary powers, suspends the trial, and sends for the Countess
Claudieuse. Since we look upon her as guilty, we must needs endow her
with supernatural energy. She had foreseen what is coming, and has read
over her part. When summoned, she appears, pale, dressed in black; and
a murmur of respectful sympathy greets her at her entrance. You see her
before you, don’t you? The president explains to her why she has been
sent for, and she does not comprehend. She cannot possibly comprehend
such an abominable calumny. But when she has comprehended it? Do you see
the lofty look by which she crushes Jacques, and the grandeur with which
she replies, ‘When this man had failed in trying to murder my husband,
he tried to disgrace his wife. I intrust to you my honor as a mother
and a wife, gentlemen. I shall not answer the infamous charges of this
abject calumniator.’”
“But that means the galleys for Jacques,” exclaimed M. de Chandore, “or
even the scaffold!”
“That would be the maximum, at all events,” replied the advocate of
Sauveterre. “But the trial goes on; the prosecuting attorney demands an
overwhelming punishment; and at last the prisoner’s council is called
upon to speak. Gentlemen, you were impatient at my persistence. I do not
credit, I confess, the statement made by M. de Boiscoran. But my young
colleague here does credit it. Well, let him tell us candidly. Would he
dare to plead this statement, and assert that the Countess Claudieuse
had been Jacques’s mistress?”