“Ah! why could we not save him?” he said to his young colleague. “Let
them come and speak to me again of the power of conviction. But we must
not stay here: let us go!”
They threw themselves into the crowd, which was slowly dispersing, all
palpitating yet with the excitement of the day.
A strange reaction was already beginning to set in,--a reaction
perfectly illogic, and yet intelligible, and by no means rare under
similar circumstances.
Jacques de Boiscoran, an object of general execration as long as he
was only suspected, regained the sympathy of all the moment he was
condemned. It was as if the fatal sentence had wiped out the horror of
the crime. He was pitied; his fate was deplored; and as they thought
of his family, his mother, and his betrothed, they almost cursed the
severity of the judges.
Besides, even the least observant among those present had been struck by
the singular course which the proceedings had taken. There was not
one, probably, in that vast assembly who did not feel that there was
a mysterious and unexplored side of the case, which neither the
prosecution nor the defence had chosen to approach. Why had Cocoleu been
mentioned only once, and then quite incidentally? He was an idiot, to be
sure; but it was nevertheless through his evidence alone that suspicions
had been aroused against M. de Boiscoran. Why had he not been summoned
either by the prosecution or by the defence?
The evidence given by Count Claudieuse, also, although apparently so
conclusive at the moment, was now severely criticised.