NANTES.
The commission named by Dubois was to be permanent. Invested with
unlimited powers, which in certain cases means that the decision is
settled beforehand, they besieged the earth, supported by strong
detachments of troops.
Since the arrest of the four gentlemen, Nantes, terrified at first, had
risen in their favor. The whole of Bretagne awaited a revolt, but in the
meanwhile was quiet.
However, the trial was approaching. On the eve of the public audience,
Pontcalec held a serious conversation with his friends.
"Let us consider," said he, "whether in word or deed we have committed
any imprudence."
"No," said the other three.
"Has any one of you imparted our projects to his wife, his brother, a
friend? Have you, Montlouis?"
"No, on my honor."
"You, Talhouet?"
"No."
"You, Couedic?"
"No."
"Then they have neither proof nor accusation against us. No one has
surprised us, no one wishes us harm."
"But," said Montlouis, "meanwhile we shall be tried."
"On what grounds?"
"Oh, secret information," said Talhouet, smiling.
"Very secret," said Du Couedic, "since they do not breathe a word."
"Ah, one fine night they will force us to escape, that they may not be
obliged to liberate us some fine day."
"I do not believe it," said Montlouis, who had always been the most
desponding, perhaps because he had the most at stake, having a young
wife and two children who adored him. "I do not believe it. I have seen
Dubois in England. I have talked with him; his face is like a ferret's,
licking his lips when thirsty. Dubois is thirsty, and we are taken.
Dubois's thirst will be slaked by our blood."
"But," said Du Couedic, "there is the parliament of Bretagne."
"Yes, to look on, while we lose our heads."
There was only one of the four who smiled; that was Pontcalec.
"My friends," said he, "take courage. If Dubois be thirsty, so much the
worse for Dubois. He will go mad, that is all; but this time I answer
for it he shall not taste our blood."
And, indeed, from the beginning the task of the commission seemed
difficult. No confessions, no proofs, no witnesses. Bretagne laughed in
the commissioners' faces, and when she did not laugh, she threatened.
The president dispatched a courier to Paris to explain the state of
things, and get further instructions.
"Judge by their projects," said Dubois; "they may have done little,
because they were prevented, but they intended much, and the intention
in matters of rebellion is equivalent to the act."
Armed with this terrible weapon, the commission soon overthrew the hopes
of the province. There was a terrible audience, in which the accused
commenced with raillery and ended with accusation. On re-entering the
prison, Pontcalec congratulated them on the truths they had told the
judge.
"Nevertheless," said Montlouis, "it is a bad affair. Bretagne does not
revolt."
"She waits our condemnation," said Talhouet.
"Then she will revolt somewhat late," said Montlouis.
"But our condemnation may not take place," said Pontcalec. "Say,
frankly, we are guilty, but without proofs who will dare to sentence us?
The commission?"
"No, not the commission, but Dubois."
"I have a great mind to do one thing," said Du Couedic.
"What?"
"At the first audience to cry, 'Bretagne to the rescue!' Each time we
have seen faces of friends; we should be delivered or killed, but at
least it would be decided. I should prefer death to this suspense."
"But why run the risk of being wounded by some satellite of justice?"
"Because such a wound might be healed; not so the wound the executioner
would make."
"Oh!" said Pontcalec, "you will have no more to do with the executioner
than I shall."
"Always the prediction," said Montlouis. "You know that I have no faith
in it."
"You are wrong."
"This is sure, my friends," said Pontcalec. "We shall be exiled, we
shall be forced to embark, and I shall be lost on the way. This is my
fate. But yours may be different. Ask to go by a different vessel from
me; or there is another chance. I may fall from the deck, or slip on the
steps; at least, I shall die by the water. You know that is certain. I
might be condemned to death, taken to the very scaffold, but if the
scaffold were on dry ground I should be as easy as I am now."
His tone of confidence gave them courage. They even laughed at the
rapidity with which the deliberations were carried on. They did not know
that Dubois sent courier after courier from Paris to hasten them.
At length the commission declared themselves sufficiently enlightened,
and retired to deliberate in secret session.
Never was there a more stormy discussion. History has penetrated the
secrets of these deliberations, in which some of the least bold or least
ambitious counselors revolted against the idea of condemning these
gentlemen on presumptions which were supported solely by the
intelligence transmitted to them by Dubois; but the majority were
devoted to Dubois, and the committee came to abuse and quarrels, and
almost to blows.
At the end of a sitting of eleven hours' duration, the majority declared
their decision.
The commissioners associated sixteen others of the contumacious
gentlemen with the four chiefs, and declared:
"That the accused, found guilty of criminal projects, of treason, and of
felonious intentions, should be beheaded: those present, in person,
those absent, in effigy. That the walls and fortifications of their
castles should be demolished, their patents of nobility annuled, and
their forests cut down to the height of nine feet."
An hour after the delivery of this sentence, an order was given to the
usher to announce it to the prisoners.
The sentence had been given after the stormy sitting of which we have
spoken, and in which the accused had experienced such lively marks of
sympathy from the public. And so, having beaten the judges on all the
counts of the indictment, never had they been so full of hope.
They were seated at supper in their common room, calling to mind all the
details of the sitting, when suddenly the door opened, and in the shade
appeared the pale and stern form of the usher.
The solemn apparition changed, on the instant, into anxious palpitations
their pleasant conversation.
The usher advanced slowly, while the jailer remained at the door, and
the barrels of muskets were seen shining in the gloom of the corridor.
"What is your will, sir?" asked Pontcalec, "and what signifies this
deadly paraphernalia?"
"Gentlemen," said the usher, "I bear the sentence of the tribunal. On
your knees and listen."
"How?" said Montlouis, "it is only sentences of death that must be heard
kneeling."
"On your knees, gentlemen," replied the usher.
"Let the guilty and the base kneel," said Du Couedic; "we are gentlemen,
and innocent. We will hear our sentences standing."
"As you will, gentlemen; but uncover yourselves, for I speak in the
king's name."
Talhouet, who alone had his hat on, removed it. The four gentlemen stood
erect and bare-headed, leaning on each other, with pale faces and a
smile upon their lips.
The usher read the sentence through, uninterrupted by a murmur, or by a
single gesture of surprise.
When he had finished--
"Why was I told," asked Pontcalec, "to declare the designs of Spain
against France, and that I should be liberated? Spain was an enemy's
country. I declared what I believed I knew of her projects; and, lo! I
am condemned. Why is this? Is the commission, then, composed of cowards
who spread snares for the accused?"
The usher made no answer.
"But," added Montlouis, "the regent spared all Paris, implicated in the
conspiracy of Cellamare; not a drop of blood was shed. Yet those who
wished to carry off the regent, perhaps to kill him, were at least as
guilty as men against whom no serious accusations even could be made.
Are we then chosen to pay for the indulgence shown to the capital?"
The usher made no reply.
"You forget one thing, Montlouis," said Du Couedic, "the old family
hatred against Bretagne; and the regent, to make people believe that he
belongs to the family, wishes to prove that he hates us. It is not we,
personally, who are struck at; it is a province, which for three hundred
years has claimed in vain its privileges and its rights, and which they
wish to find guilty in order to have done with it forever."
The usher preserved a religious silence.
"Enough," said Talhouet, "we are condemned. 'Tis well. Now, have we, or
have we not, the right of appeal?"
"No, gentlemen," said the usher.
"Then you can retire," said Couedic.
The usher bowed and withdrew, followed by his escort, and the prison
door, heavy and clanging, closed once more upon the four gentlemen.
"Well!" said Montlouis, when they were again alone.
"Well, we are condemned," said Pontcalec. "I never said there would be
no sentence; I only said it would not be carried into execution."
"I am of Pontcalec's opinion," said Talhouet. "What they have done is
but to terrify the province and test its patience."
"Besides," said Du Couedic, "they will not execute us without the
regent's ratification of the sentence. Now, without an extraordinary
courier, it will take two days to reach Paris, one to examine into the
affair, and two to return, altogether five days. We have, then, five
days before us; and what may not happen in five days? The province will
rise on hearing of our doom--"
Montlouis shook his head.
"Besides, there is Gaston," said Pontcalec, "whom you always forget."
"I am much afraid that Gaston has been arrested," said Montlouis. "I
know Gaston, and were he at liberty, we should have heard of him ere
now."
"Prophet of evil," said Talhouet, "at least you will not deny that we
have some days before us."
"Who knows?" said Montlouis.
"And the waters?" said Pontcalec; "the waters? You always forget that I
can only perish by the waters."
"Well, then, let us be seated again," said Du Couedic, "and a last glass
to our healths."
"There is no more wine," said Montlouis; "'tis an evil omen."
"Bah! there is more in the cellar," said Pontcalec.
And he called the jailer.
The man, on entering, found the four friends at table; he looked at them
in astonishment.
"Well, what is there new, Master Christopher?" said Pontcalec.
Christopher came from Guer, and had a particular respect for Pontcalec,
whose uncle Crysogon had been his seigneur.
"Nothing but what you know," he replied.
"Then go and fetch some wine."
"They wish to deaden their feelings," said the jailer to himself; "poor
gentlemen."
Montlouis alone heard Christopher's remark, and he smiled sadly.
An instant afterward they heard steps rapidly approaching their room.
The door opened, and Christopher reappeared without any bottle in his
hand.
"Well," said Pontcalec, "where is the wine?"
"Good news," cried Christopher, without answering Pontcalec's inquiry,
"good news, gentlemen."
"What?" said Montlouis, starting. "Is the regent--dead?"
"And Bretagne in revolt?" asked Du Couedic.
"No. I could not call that good news."
"Well, what is it then?" said Pontcalec.
"Monsieur de Chateauneuf has just ordered back to their barracks the
hundred and fifty men who were under arms in the market-place, which had
terrified everybody."
"Ah," said Montlouis, "I begin to believe it will not take place this
evening."
At this moment the clock struck six.
"Well," said Pontcalec, "good news is no reason for our remaining
thirsty; go and fetch our wine."
Christopher went out, and returned in ten minutes with a bottle.
The friends who were still at table filled their glasses.
"To Gaston's health," said Pontcalec, exchanging a meaning glance with
his friends, to whom alone this toast was comprehensible.
And they emptied their glasses, all except Montlouis, who stopped as he
was lifting his to his lips.
"Well, what is it?" said Pontcalec.
"The drum," said Montlouis, stretching out his hand in the direction
where he heard the sound.
"Well," said Talhouet, "did you not hear what Christopher said? it is
the troops returning."
"On the contrary, it is the troops going out; that is not a retreat, but
the generale."
"The generale!" said Talhouet, "what on earth can that mean?"
"No good," said Montlouis, shaking his head.
"Christopher!" said Pontcalec, turning to the jailer.
"Yes, gentlemen, I will find out what it is," said he, "and be back in
an instant."
He rushed out of the room, but not without carefully shutting the door
behind him.
The four friends remained in anxious silence. After a lapse of ten
minutes the door opened, and the jailer reappeared, pale with terror.
"A courier has just entered the castle court," said he; "he comes from
Paris, he has delivered his dispatches, and immediately the guards were
doubled, and the drums beat in all the barracks."
"Oh, oh," said Montlouis, "that concerns us."
"Some one is ascending the stairs," said the jailer, more pale and
trembling than those to whom he spoke. In fact, they heard the butt ends
of the muskets clanging on the stones of the corridor, and at the same
time several voices were heard speaking hastily.
The door opened, and the usher reappeared.
"Gentlemen," said he, "how long do you desire to set your worldly
affairs in order, and to undergo your sentence?"
A profound terror froze even the hearers.
"I desire," said Montlouis, "time for the sentence to reach Paris and
return, approved by the regent."
"I," said Talhouet, "only desire the time necessary for the commission
to repent of its iniquity."
"As for me," said Du Couedic, "I wish for time for the minister at Paris
to commute the sentence into eight days' imprisonment, which we deserve
for having acted somewhat thoughtlessly."
"And you," said the usher gravely, to Pontcalec, who was silent, "what
do you ask?"
"I," said Pontcalec calmly, "I demand nothing."
"Then, gentlemen," said the usher, "this is the answer of the
commission: you have two hours at your disposal to arrange your
spiritual and temporal affairs; it is now half-past six, in two hours
and a half you must be on the Place du Bouffay, where the execution will
take place."
There was a profound silence; the bravest felt fear seizing the very
roots of their hair.
The usher retired without any one having made any answer; only the
condemned looked at each other, and pressed each other's hands.
They had two hours.
Two hours, in the ordinary course of life, seem sometimes an age, at
others two hours are but a moment.
The priests arrived, after them the soldiers, then the executioners.
The situation was appalling. Pontcalec, alone, did not belie himself.
Not that the others wanted courage, but they wanted hope; still
Pontcalec reassured them by the calmness with which he addressed, not
only the priests, but the executioners themselves.
They made the preparations for that terrible process called the toilet
of the condemned. The four sufferers must proceed to the scaffold
dressed in black cloaks, in order that in the eyes of the people, from
whom they always feared some tumult, they might be confounded with the
priests who exhorted them.
Then the question of tying their hands was discussed--an important
question.
Pontcalec answered with his smile of sublime confidence.
"Oh, leave us at least our hands free; we will go without disturbance."
"That has nothing to do with us," replied the executioner who was
attending to Pontcalec; "unless by special order, the rules are the same
for all sufferers."
"And who gives these orders?" said Pontcalec, laughing, "the king?"
"No, marquis," answered the executioner, astonished by such unexampled
presence of mind, "not the king, but our chief."
"And where is your chief?"
"That is he, talking with the jailer Christopher."
"Call him then," said Pontcalec.
"Ho, Monsieur Waters!" cried the executioner, "please to come this way;
there is one of these gentlemen asking for you."
A thunderbolt falling in the midst of them would not have produced a
more terrible effect upon the four gentlemen than did this name.
"What did you say?" cried Pontcalec, shaking with affright; "what did
you say? What name did you pronounce?"
"Waters, our chief."
Pontcalec, pale and overcome, sank upon a chair, casting an unutterable
glance upon his affrighted companions. No one around them understood
this sudden despair, which so rapidly succeeded to so high a confidence.
"Well?" asked Montlouis, addressing Pontcalec in a tone of tender
reproach.
"Yes, gentlemen, you were right," said Pontcalec; "but I also was right
to believe in this prediction, for it will be accomplished, as the
others were. Only this time I yield, and confess that we are lost."
And by a spontaneous movement the four gentlemen threw themselves into
each other's arms with fervent prayers to Heaven.
"What do you order?" asked the executioner.
"It is useless to tie their hands if they will give their words of
honor; they are soldiers and gentlemen."