An Historical Mystery Part 24

At five in the morning of the day after Monsieur de Grandville's speech, the senator was found on the high road to Troyes, delivered from captivity during his sleep, unaware of the trial that was going on or of the excitement attaching to his name in Europe, and simply happy in being once more able to breathe the fresh air. The man who was the pivot of the drama was quite as amazed at what was now told to him as the persons who met him on his way to Troyes were astounded at his reappearance. A farmer lent him a carriage and he soon reached the house of the prefect at Troyes. The prefect notified the director of the jury, the commissary of the government, and the public prosecutor, who, after a statement made to them by Malin, arrested Marthe, while she was still in bed at the Durieu's house in the suburbs. Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, who was only at liberty under bail, was also s.n.a.t.c.hed from one of the few hours of slumber she had been able to obtain at rare intervals in the course of her ceaseless anxiety, and taken to the prefecture to undergo an examination. An order to keep the accused from holding any communication with each other or with their counsel was sent to the prison. At ten o'clock the crowd which a.s.sembled around the courtroom were informed that the trial was postponed until one o'clock in the afternoon of the same day.

This change of hour, following on the news of the senator's deliverance, Marthe's arrest, and that of Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, together with the denial of the right to communicate with the prisoners carried terror to the hotel de Chargeboeuf. The whole town and the spectators who had come to Troyes to be present at the trial, the short-hand writers for the daily journals, even the populace were in a ferment which can readily be imagined. The Abbe Goujet came at ten o'clock to see Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre and the counsel for the defence, who were breakfasting--as well as they could under the circ.u.mstances. The abbe took Bordin and Monsieur Grandville apart, told them what Marthe had confided to him the day before, and gave them the fragment of the letter she had received. The two lawyers exchanged a look, after which Bordin said to the abbe: "Not a word of all this! The case is lost; but at any rate let us show a firm front."

Marthe was not strong enough to evade the cross-questioning of the director of the jury and the public prosecutor. Moreover the proof against her was too overwhelming. Lechesneau had sent for the under crust of the last loaf of bread she had carried to the cavern, also for the empty bottles and various other articles. During the senator's long hours of captivity he had formed conjectures in his own mind and had looked for indications which might put him on the track of his enemies.

These he now communicated to the authorities. Michu's farmhouse, lately built, had, he supposed, a new oven; the tiles or bricks on which the bread was baked would show their jointed lines on the bottom of the loaves, and thus afford a proof that the bread supplied to him was baked on that particular oven. So with the wine brought in bottles sealed with green wax, which would probably be found identical with other bottles in Michu's cellar. These shrewd observations, which Malin imparted to the justice of peace, who made the first examination (taking Marthe with him), led to the results foreseen by the senator.

Marthe, deceived by the apparent friendliness of Lechesneau and the public prosecutor, who a.s.sured her that complete confession could alone save her husband's life, admitted that the cavern where the senator had been hidden was known only to her husband and the Messieurs de Simeuse and d'Hauteserre, and that she herself had taken provisions to the senator on three separate occasions at midnight.

Laurence, questioned about the cavern, was forced to acknowledge that Michu had discovered it and had shown it to her at the time when the four young men evaded the police and were hidden in it.

As soon as these preliminary examinations were ended, the jury, lawyers, and audience were notified that the trial would be resumed. At three o'clock the president opened the session by announcing that the case would be continued under a new aspect. He exhibited to Michu three bottles of wine and asked him if he recognized them as bottles from his own cellar, showing him at the same time the ident.i.ty between the green wax on two empty bottles with the green wax on a full bottle taken from his cellar that morning by the justice of peace in presence of his wife.

Michu refused to recognize anything as his own. But these proofs for the prosecution were understood by the jurors, to whom the president explained that the empty bottles were found in the place where the senator was imprisoned.

Each prisoner was questioned as to the cavern or cellar beneath the ruins of the old monastery. It was proved by all witnesses for the prosecution, and also for the defence, that the existence of this hiding-place discovered by Michu was known only to him and his wife, and to Laurence and the four gentlemen. We may judge of the effect in the courtroom when the public prosecutor made known the fact that this cavern, known only to the accused and to their two witnesses, was the place where the senator had been imprisoned.

Marthe was summoned. Her appearance caused much excitement among the spectators and keen anxiety to the prisoners. Monsieur de Grandville rose to protest against the testimony of a wife against her husband.

The public prosecutor replied that Marthe by her own confession was an accomplice in the outrage; that she had neither sworn nor testified, and was to be heard solely in the interests of truth.

"We need only submit her preliminary examination to the jury," remarked the president, who now ordered the clerk of the court to read the said testimony aloud.

"Do you now confirm your own statement?" said the president, addressing Marthe.

Michu looked at his wife, and Marthe, who saw her fatal error, fainted away and fell to the floor. It may be truly said that a thunderbolt had fallen upon the prisoners and their counsel.

"I never wrote to my wife from prison, and I know none of the persons employed there," said Michu.

Bordin pa.s.sed to him the fragments of the letter Marthe had received.

Michu gave but one glance at it. "My writing has been imitated," he said.

"Denial is your last resource," said the public prosecutor.

The senator was introduced into the courtroom with all the ceremonies due to his position. His entrance was like a stage scene. Malin (now called Comte de Gondreville, without regard to the feelings of the late owners of the property) was requested by the president to look at the prisoners, and did so with great attention and for a long time. He stated that the clothing of his abductors was exactly like that worn by the four gentlemen; but he declared that the trouble of his mind had been such that he could not be positive that the accused were really the guilty parties.

"More than that," he said, "it is my conviction that these four gentlemen had nothing to do with it. The hands that blindfolded me in the forest were coa.r.s.e and rough. I should rather suppose," he added, looking at Michu, "that my old enemy took charge of that duty; but I beg the gentlemen of the jury not to give too much weight to this remark. My suspicions are very slight, and I feel no certainty whatever--for this reason. The two men who seized me put me on horseback behind the man who blindfolded me, and whose hair was red like Michu's. However singular you may consider the observation I am about to make, it is necessary to make it because it is the ground of an opinion favorable to the accused--who, I hope, will not feel offended by it. Fastened to the man's back I would naturally have been affected by his odor--yet I did not perceive that which is peculiar to Michu. As to the person who brought me provisions on three several occasions, I am certain it was Marthe, the wife of Michu. I recognized her the first time she came by a ring she always wore, which she had forgotten to remove. The Court and jury will please allow for the contradictions which appear in the facts I have stated, which I myself am wholly unable to reconcile."

A murmur of approval followed this testimony. Bordin asked permission of the Court to address a few questions to the witness.

"Does the senator think that his abduction was due to other causes than the interests respecting property which the prosecution attributes to the prisoners?"

"I do," replied the senator, "but I am wholly ignorant of what the real motives were; for during a captivity of twenty days I saw and heard no one."

"Do you think," said the public prosecutor, "that your chateau at Gondreville contains information, t.i.tle-deeds, or other papers of value which would induce a search on the part of the Messieurs de Simeuse?"

"I do not think so," replied Malin; "I believe those gentlemen to be incapable of attempting to get possession of such papers by violence.

They had only to ask me for them to obtain them."

"You burned certain papers in the park, did you not?" said Monsieur de Gondreville, abruptly.

Malin looked at Grevin. After exchanging a rapid glance with the notary, which Bordin intercepted, he replied that he had not burned any papers.

The public prosecutor having asked him to describe the ambush to which he had so nearly fallen a victim two years earlier, the senator replied that he had seen Michu watching him from the fork of a tree. This answer, which agreed with Grevin's testimony, produced a great impression.

The four gentlemen remained impa.s.sible during the examination of their enemy, who seemed determined to overwhelm them with generosity. Laurence suffered horrible agony. From time to time the Marquis de Chargeboeuf held her by the arm, fearing she might dart forward to the rescue. The Comte de Gondreville retired from the courtroom and as he did so he bowed to the four gentlemen, who did not return the salutation. This trifling matter made the jury indignant.

"They are lost now," whispered Bordin to the Marquis de Chargeboeuf.

"Alas, yes! and always through the n.o.bility of their sentiments,"

replied the marquis.

"My task is now only too easy, gentlemen," said the prosecutor, rising to address the jury.

He explained the use of the cement by the necessity of securing an iron frame on which to fasten a padlock which held the iron bar with which the gate of the cavern was closed; a description of which was given in the _proces-verbal_ made that morning by Pigoult. He put the falsehoods of the accused into the strongest light, and pulverized the arguments of the defence with the new evidence so miraculously obtained. In 1806 France was still too near the Supreme Being of 1793 to talk about divine justice; he therefore spared the jury all reference to the intervention of heaven; but he said that earthly justice would be on the watch for the mysterious accomplices who had set the senator at liberty, and he sat down, confidently awaiting the verdict.

The jury believed there was a mystery, but they were all persuaded that it came from the prisoners, who were probably concealing some matter of a private interest of great importance to them.

Monsieur de Grandville, to whom a plot or machination of some kind was quite evident, rose; but he seemed discouraged,--less, however, by the new evidence than by the manifest opinion of the jury. He surpa.s.sed, if anything, his speech of the previous evening; his argument was more compact and logical; but he felt his fervor repelled by the coldness of the jury; he spoke ineffectually, and he knew it,--a chilling situation for an advocate. He called attention to the fact that the release of the senator, as if by magic and clearly without the aid of any of the accused or of Marthe, corroborated his previous argument. Yesterday the prisoners could most surely rely on acquittal, and if they had, as the prosecution claimed, the power to hold or to release the senator, they certainly would not have released him until after their acquittal. He endeavored to bring before the minds of the Court and jury the fact that mysterious enemies, undiscovered as yet, could alone have struck the accused this final blow.

Strange to say, the only minds Monsieur de Grandville reached with this argument were those of the public prosecutor and the judges. The jury listened perfunctorily; the audience, usually so favorable to prisoners, were convinced of their guilt. In a court of justice the sentiments of the crowd do unquestionably weigh upon the judges and the jury, and _vice versa_. Seeing this condition of the minds about him, which could be felt if not defined, the counsel uttered his last words in a tone of pa.s.sionate excitement caused by his conviction:--

"In the name of the accused," he cried, "I forgive you for the fatal error you are about to commit, and which nothing can repair! We are the victims of some mysterious and Machiavellian power. Marthe Michu was inveigled by vile perfidy. You will discover this too late, when the evil you now do will be irreparable."

Bordin simply claimed the acquittal of the prisoners on the testimony of the senator himself.

The president summed up the case with all the more impartiality because it was evident that the minds of the jurors were already made up. He even turned the scales in favor of the prisoners by dwelling on the senator's evidence. This clemency, however, did not in the least endanger the success of the prosecution. At eleven o'clock that night, after the jury had replied through their foreman to the usual questions, the Court condemned Michu to death, the Messieurs de Simeuse to twenty-four years' and the Messieurs d'Hauteserre to ten years, penal servitude at hard labor. Gothard was acquitted.

The whole audience was eager to observe the bearing of the five guilty men in this supreme moment of their lives. The four gentlemen looked at Laurence, who returned them, with dry eyes, the ardent look of the martyrs.

"She would have wept had we been acquitted," said the younger de Simeuse to his brother.

Never did convicted men meet an unjust fate with serener brows or countenances more worthy of their manhood than these five victims of a cruel plot.

"Our counsel has forgiven you," said the eldest de Simeuse to the Court.

Madame d'Hauteserre fell ill, and was three months in her bed at the hotel de Chargeboeuf. Monsieur d'Hauteserre returned patiently to Cinq-Cygne, inwardly gnawed by one of those sorrows of old age which have none of youth's distractions; often he was so absent-minded that the abbe, who watched him, knew the poor father was living over again the scene of the fatal verdict. Marthe pa.s.sed away from all blame; she died three weeks after the condemnation of her husband, confiding her son to Laurence, in whose arms she died.

The trial once over, political events of the utmost importance effaced even the memory of it, and nothing further was discovered. Society is like the ocean; it returns to its level and its specious calmness after a disaster, effacing all traces of it in the tide of its eager interests.

Without her natural firmness of mind and her knowledge of her cousins'

innocence, Laurence would have succ.u.mbed; but she gave fresh proof of the grandeur of her character; she astonished Monsieur de Grandville and Bordin by the apparent serenity which these terrible misfortunes called forth in her n.o.ble soul. She nursed Madame d'Hauteserre and went daily to the prison, saying openly that she would marry one of the cousins when they were taken to the galleys.

"To the galleys!" cried Bordin, "Mademoiselle! our first endeavor must be to wring their pardon from the Emperor."

"Their pardon!--_from a Bonaparte_?" cried Laurence in horror.

The spectacles of the old lawyer jumped from his nose; he caught them as they fell and looked at the young girl who was now indeed a woman; he understood her character at last in all its bearings; then he took the arm of the Marquis de Chargeboeuf, saying:--

"Monsieur le Marquis, let us go to Paris instantly and save them without her!"