A month had passed, the interrogatories had been made to all the
prisoners concerned in the Norman Plot, and the witnesses had been
examined and their depositions signed and sworn to. The day had come
for the Extra-Ordinary Commission to sit at the Arsenal; a Commission
consisting of nineteen carefully selected members who were to deliver
judgment on what was now spoken of in France as "L'affaire du
Chevalier de Beaurepaire." Amongst these members were La Reynie, who
filled on this occasion the office of Procureur-Général du Roi, the
Chancellor d'Aligre who presided over the tribunal, twelve other State
Councillors and five ordinary Judges.
The prisoners were seated together, the only difference made between
them being that De Beaurepaire, by right of his position as Grand
Veneur, from which he had not yet been removed, as well as, perhaps,
by his birth and rank, sat alone on a bench a few feet apart from, and
nearer to the Judges, than the others. Those others, Emérance, Van den
Enden and La Preaux, or Fleur de Mai, sat together in the order
indicated, whereby the woman who loved De Beaurepaire so madly was
next to him though separated from him by that gap of a few feet.
But for the fact that around the _Chambre Judiciaire_ stood
various guards and soldiers, such as those of the King's Guards,
several of the Gendarmerie, and a number of men of the garrison of the
Bastille--under whose charge the prisoners were transported from that
fortress--and also various servants and footmen of the Judges, as well
as many members of the police of Paris, known as Archers, there were
no members of the general public present. That such, however, would
not have been the case had the wishes of many members of that
public--and exalted ones, too!--been consulted, was not to be doubted.
Innumerable women of high rank who had once given their hearts, or
what they were pleased to imagine to be their hearts, to the superbly
handsome De Beaurepaire, had applied for permission to be present and
had been decisively refused; so, too, had many men of brilliant
position. The Great Condé who, though cousin to the King and the most
distinguished soldier of his time, if Turenne be excepted, could well
enact the part of bully and braggart when he saw fit, had stormed and
sworn at La Reynie for being refused, as, it was whispered, he had
also stormed and sworn at De Louvois, from whom, however, he was
unable to obtain his desire.
Therefore, it was with closed doors that the Commission commenced its
labours on this autumn morning, after D'Aligre had addressed a few
remarks to all who were present--except his brother Judges--in which
he stated that, if any account of what took place within the walls of
that room was repeated outside and the culprit could be discovered,
that culprit would undoubtedly be punished with either the galleys or
death.
Of evidence, beyond whatever might be extorted from the prisoners by
the Judges or the Procureur-Général, there was none to be tendered by
witnesses, with the exception of that which two persons would be
called upon to give, one of those persons being Le Colonel Boisfleury,
the other a gentleman, now an official of the King's _Garde Robe_,
named Humphrey West. Defenders of any of the prisoners there were
none. Until the commencement of the sixteenth century prisoners had
been allowed the right of such counsel; some years later an ordinance
had deprived them of that right, an ordinance which called forth from
the well-known President Lamoignon the still remembered phrase, "Il
vaudrait mieux absoudre mille coupables que de faire mourir un
innocent." A phrase often quoted in English and French law courts to
the present day.
In the witness chair, Boisfleury took his seat after innumerable
letters had been read, which, coming from various sources, all pointed
to one thing, namely, an attempt of the Spanish and Dutch Governments
to promote an invasion of France on the coast of Normandy with the
ultimate object of deposing the King and of creating a Republic
similar to that of Venice or Holland itself, which should be under the
protection of Spain and Holland while presided over by a Frenchman of
high rank and position. One of these letters was from the Duc de
Saint-Aignan, Governor of Havre, stating that it was impossible to
doubt that a plot of considerable depth was hatching in Normandy and
Picardy. Another was from Louise de Kéroualle, now Duchess of
Portsmouth and favourite mistress of King Charles II., in which she
stated that, from Normandy, in which she possessed some small
property, similar news came to her with regard to this plot, and also
that it was much talked of in Court circles in London. The Duchess
also mentioned the name which was suggested as that of the man who was
to assume the position of President of this new republic, and that
name was De Beaurepaire. From the Duchesse de Castellucchio came
another, imploring the King to be on his guard against a plot which
was brewing against him, while stating that, though she had learnt of
the existence of this plot, she had no knowledge of any who were
concerned in it.
"Yet," said D'Aligre to a brother Judge, "'tis strange that this
heroine of romance had not heard of the plot ere she left Paris, but
had heard of it when she left Nancy for Basle and Geneva. And there
was but one friend of hers who could have told her anything whatever,
since she would not have stooped to listen to La Truaumont who, in his
turn, would not have babbled. _Hein?_"
To which observation the other Judge nodded his head without speaking.
But now the reading of these letters and a dozen others was finished
and La Reynie, leaning over on the crimson cushion before him,
addressed Boisfleury while referring every instant to the deposition
of the man before him.
"You say here that you knew nothing of this plot when you left Paris
in the suite of the Duchesse de Castellucchio. When, therefore, did
you first know that it was projected?"
"At Basle. When I was told that I should have to take part in the
slaying of the young Englishman. I refused to play such a part, since
it is not my business to take life except as a soldier, unless I was
told why the Englishman was to be slain."
"And you were told?"
"I was told, yet inwardly I resolved to have no share in the matter."
"All lies!" roared out Fleur de Mai at this. "He asked what his pay
was to be."
"I will prove they are not lies," the other said, glancing at his
brother vagabond. "When Monsieur le Procureur-Général comes to the
time at which you stabbed the young man."
"Attend to me and not to the prisoner," La Reynie said to Boisfleury.
"You say you resolved to have no share in the matter unless you were
told why the Englishman was to be slain. Since, therefore, you were
present in the stable--as you affirm in your interrogatory--you had
been told. What _were_ you told?"
"That the Prince de Beaurepaire, the Capitaine la Truaumont and that
scoundrel there," nodding his head at Fleur de Mai, "were all
concerned in a plot of which the Englishman had discovered the
details. That, also, if La Truaumont were denounced, I, who was truly
in his pay and not in that of either the Prince de Beaurepaire or the
Duchesse de Castellucchio, would also be denounced."
"Every word a lie!" exclaimed Fleur de Mai who, swaggerer to the last,
behaved more as if he were one of the Commission himself than a
prisoner against whom appearances looked as bad as might well be.
"Silence," La Reynie said, addressing him. "If you again interrupt you
shall be removed and inquiries made into your actions while you are
absent." Then, turning to Boisfleury, he said: "Therefore, knowing
that this murder was decided on so as to ensure the safety of you all,
you at first resolved to take part in it."
"No, Monsieur le Procureur-Général," Boisfleury said quietly, "I
decided on no such thing. What I did truly decide on, since I was
informed that the young man would but be drawn into a duel with Fleur
de Mai, in which his chance might be as good as that of the other--was
that I would stand by and see that duel. Thereby I should not appear
to be against those two ruffians, La Truaumont and La Preaux, and
should obtain time in which to come to a conclusion as to how I might
best warn his Majesty against the wicked plot."
"Such being your praiseworthy resolve why did you not put it in
practice later?"
"He did," the President whispered to La Reynie. "He went to
Fontainebleau to inform the Marquis de Louvois of that plot."
"True," La Reynie whispered in turn as he hastily turned over the
depositions. "Yet he did not warn the Marquis. It was to De Brissac
that he unbosomed himself some week or so later. But we will hear his
story. Now," again addressing Boisfleury, "you say in these," tapping
the papers before him, "that you went to Fontainebleau to warn the
King's Ministers of this plot against his Majesty. Yet you failed to
do so. Why did you refrain? Why also wait some week or so ere you
addressed yourself to the Sieur de Brissac?"
"Monsieur le Procureur-Général, I was too much undone, too startled by
what I saw on my way up the Grand Avenue to the Château. I thought I
had seen a spirit from another world."
"What!" While, as La Reynie spoke scornfully to the man, all eyes,
including those of the prisoners, were turned on him. What
rhodomontade was this they were listening to, they all wondered; with
what gibberish was this man, half knave and half adventurer and wholly
vagabond, insulting their understandings as he mumbled this buffoonery
about spirits from another world?
They did not know--not even the most astute Judges and men of law in
France knew or understood, that the fellow before them was but
preparing his final effects, his tableau and _dénoûment_ (which should
crush the man who had meant to crush him and brand him as a secret
midnight assassin) as their own dramatists prepared their tableaux by
exciting curiosity from the commencement.
"Monsieur le Procureur-Général," Boisfleury replied, speaking with
such well-affected calmness and intensity that his tones became almost
dignified and were entirely impressive. "There is no person in this
court who would not have thought as I thought, have believed as I
believed, that he was looking on a spectre or one who had come back to
this world for some dread purpose, had that person seen what I saw on
that awful night in Basle and then seen what I saw in the Grand
Avenue. A dead man as I thought at first, at the moment,--one who had
come back from the grave. Monsieur le Procureur, Messieurs les Judges,
may I tell all?"
"'Tis for that you sit in that seat,--that you are here," D'Aligre
said. "Speak, but speak only the truth. Otherwise----"
"Otherwise, monseigneur!" Boisfleury exclaimed, "otherwise! _Dieu!_
there is no lie, no fiction that mortal man could invent which can
equal that which I saw at Basle. Horrors have I known; I have been a
soldier"--there were those who said he never had been one but only a
common footpad and cut-throat; but this matters not--"yet never have I
seen so wicked, so bloodthirsty and cruel a night as that."
"Speak," exclaimed D'Aligre again. "Tell your tale and have done with
it."
Whereupon the man told it. As he did so all present knew that the axe
was made ready for one neck in that court; for the neck of Fleur de
Mai, if for no other.
"Messeigneurs," he said, speaking solemnly, effectively, one hand upon
his breast, the other pointing his words, and sometimes, also,
pointing straight at the face of Fleur de Mai: "Messeigneurs, upon
that night the young Englishman, he who sits there before you white
and wan, was set upon in the stable at Basle. He," and he looked at
Humphrey for a moment, "wronged me with an unjust suspicion. He deemed
that I meant evil to him or his horse, when--God alone He knows--that
I did but intend to set that horse free for him, but to cut the halter
rope, so as to enable him to ride off at once if he should vanquish
Fleur de Mai. At once, since La Truaumont had sworn that, if this
happened, he would slay the Englishman the next moment, not in fair
fight but ere he could put himself on guard.
"Therefore, he struck at me, knocking me senseless to the straw and
there I lay for some moments. But, gradually, as the dizziness left
me, as sense returned, I saw what was happening. By degrees that bully
was being worsted; it seemed as though his last hour was at hand. And
then--then--he tried the coward's ruse--he fell to the earth on his
left hand--with his foot he struck the young man's feet from under him
so that he staggered--a moment later his sword was through the young
man's breast. I deemed him dead.
"La Truaumont and he thought that I was still insensible, therefore
they heeded me not," Boisfleury went on, his eye, glittering like that
of a snake, fixed full on Fleur de Mai, upon whose face there had
suddenly sprung a drench of sweat--he divining perhaps what was to
come next. "They heeded me not. 'He is finished,' La Truaumont said;
'there is no need for me.' 'Not yet,' this other replied, 'not yet.
There is more to do.' Whereupon he lifted up his craven blade as
though to plunge it through the senseless man's breast, while as he
did so he muttered: 'For De Beaurepaire's safety, for yours, for mine,
for the sake of all'."
As Boisfleury arrived at this portion of his story--he should have
been one of the French dramatists of the time!--the court was as
silent as though it had been tenanted by the dead alone: as though it
were a tomb and not a room full of living human beings. All eyes were
fastened on the face of the narrator; the eyes of Judges, prisoners,
guards, the one woman present; and all held their breath. For, if the
tale were not true, it sounded like truth. It might be truth. While,
for the corroboration of the early part at least, there was present in
that court the man on whom the foul attack had been made, on whom was
done whatever else they were to hear told.
"Ere the assassin could plunge his sword into the Englishman's
breast," Boisfleury continued, while marking the effect of his words
on all his listeners, "the hand of La Truaumont fell upon his arm, La
Truaumont whispered: 'Fool. Why leave a trace behind! Look there;
there--there. The river runs swiftly by; what goes into it comes out
no more. There! there! There is the fitting grave for him whom you
have almost slain.' Then he went swiftly away, muttering that he would
enter the inn and keep all engaged in talk until this one had finished
his work.
"I--I--saw him lift the young man," Boisfleury went on, pointing at
Fleur de Mai as he spoke, "I saw him go out into the awful storm that
had broken over the city; struggling to my feet as he left the stable
with his burden, I would have prevented him from concluding his crime.
But I was weak and faint from my loss of blood, a vertigo seized on
me, I reeled and fell in the straw again. Yet, through the now wide
open door out of which he had borne the body, I saw all. I saw this
man carry the other on his back beneath the pitiless rain, yet rain
that was not as pitiless as he; I saw him turn his back to the river,
I saw him let loose the other's hands--I saw that other's body fall
into the river, and then, once more, I fainted. I have seen horrid
sights, I have been a soldier," Boisfleury repeated, "yet never have I
seen aught like that. Messeigneurs," he concluded, "was it strange
that, when I saw that man at Fontainebleau, white, ghastly as one who
had but just returned from the grave, I deemed that I had seen a
spirit from the other world?"
As he concluded, and ere the silence could be broken, there came from
the lips of Fleur de Mai an awful sound. One that was neither groan
nor gasp nor wail, but a combination of all three. It seemed to those
present that the ruffian was choking to death or that some terrible
stroke had fallen on him. His great hands tore at the dirty, soiled
lace around his neck and at the tags of his jacket, as though he would
free his throat and obtain breath; his face was purple, his eyes
started from his head, his great, coarse lips were swollen. And
through those lips issued sounds that none could comprehend: a jargon
of oaths and strange words jumbled pell-mell together without sense or
coherence.
Standing by the chair from which he had risen, looking calmly at him,
Boisfleury muttered inwardly, "The murder will out and Boisfleury pays
for it!" and then turned away his face so that none should see the
look upon it that he knew it bore.