Within an Inch of His Life Part 113

THIRD PART--COCOLEU

I.

Thus M. Galpin triumphed, and M. Gransiere had reason to be proud of his eloquence. Jacques de Boiscoran had been found guilty.

But he looked calm, and even haughty, as the president, M. Domini, p.r.o.nounced the terrible sentence, a thousand times braver at that moment than the man who, facing the squad of soldiers from whom he is to receive death, refuses to have his eyes bandaged, and himself gives the word of command with a firm voice.

That very morning, a few moments before the beginning of the trial, he had said to Dionysia,--

"I know what is in store for me; but I am innocent. They shall not see me turn pale, nor hear me ask for mercy."

And, gathering up all the energy of which the human heart is capable, he had made a supreme effort at the decisive moment, and kept his word.

Turning quietly to his counsel at the moment when the last words of the president were lost among the din of the crowd, he said,--

"Did I not tell you that the day would come when you yourself would be the first to put a weapon into my hands?"

M. Folgat rose promptly.

He showed neither the anger nor the disappointment of an advocate who has just had a cause which he knew to be just.

"That day has not come yet," he replied. "Remember your promise. As long as there remains a ray of hope, we shall fight. Now we have much more than mere hope at this moment. In less than a month, in a week, perhaps to-morrow, we shall have our revenge."

The unfortunate man shook his head.

"I shall nevertheless have undergone the disgrace of a condemnation," he murmured.

The taking the ribbon of the Legion of Honor from his b.u.t.tonhole, he handed it to M. Folgat, saying--

"Keep this in memory of me, and if I never regain the right to wear it"--

In the meantime, however, the gendarmes, whose duty it was to guard the prisoner, had risen; and the sergeant said to Jacques,--

"We must go, sir. Come, come! You need not despair. You need not lose courage. All is not over yet. There is still the appeal for you, and then the pet.i.tion for pardon, not to speak of what may happen, and cannot be foreseen."

M. Folgat was allowed to accompany the prisoner, and was getting ready to do so; but the latter said, with a pained voice,--

"No, my friend, please leave me alone. Others have more need of your presence than I have. Dionysia, my poor father, my mother. Go to them.

Tell them that the horror of my condemnation lies in the thought of them. May they forgive me for the affliction which I cause them, and for the disgrace of having me for their son, for her betrothed!"

Then, pressing the hands of his counsel, he added,--

"And you, my friends, how shall I ever express to you my grat.i.tude? Ah!

if incomparable talents, and matchless zeal and ability, had sufficed, I know I should be free. But instead of that"--he pointed at the little door through which he was to pa.s.s, and said in a heartrending tone,--

"Instead of that, there is the door to the galleys. Henceforth"--

A sob cut short his words. His strength was exhausted; for if there are, so to say, no limits to the power of endurance of the spirit, the energy of the body has its bounds. Refusing the arm which the sergeant offered him, he rushed out of the room.

M. Magloire was well-nigh beside himself with grief.

"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 circ.u.mstances.

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 a.s.sembly 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.

The most indulgent said,--

"That was not well done. That was a trick. Why did he not speak out before? People do not wait for a man to be down before they strike him."

Others added,--

"And did you notice how M. de Boiscoran and Count Claudieuse looked at each other? Did you hear what they said to each other? One might have sworn that there was something else, something very different from a mere lawsuit, between them."

And on all sides people repeated,--

"At all events, M. Folgat is right. The whole matter is far from being cleared up. The jury was long before they agreed. Perhaps M.

de Boiscoran would have been acquitted, if, at the last moment, M.

Gransiere had not announced the impending death of Count Claudieuse in the adjoining room."

M. Magloire and M. Folgat listened to all these remarks, as they heard them in the crowd here and there, with great satisfaction; for in spite of all the a.s.sertions of magistrates and judges, in spite of all the thundering condemnations against the practice, public opinion will find an echo in the court-room; and, more frequently than we think, public opinion does dictate the verdict of the jury.

"And now," said M. Magloire to his young colleague, "now we can be content. I know Sauveterre by heart. I tell you public opinion is henceforth on our side."

By dint of perseverance they made their way, at last, out through the narrow door of the court-room, when one of the ushers stopped them.

"They wish to see you," said the man.

"Who?"

"The family of the prisoner. Poor people! They are all in there, in M. Mechinet's office. M. Daubigeon told me to keep it for them. The Marchioness de Boiscoran also was carried there when she was taken ill in the court-room."

He accompanied the two gentlemen, while telling them this, to the end of the hall; then he opened a door, and said,--

"They are in there," and withdrew discreetly.

There, in an easy-chair, with closed eyes, and half-open lips, lay Jacques's mother. Her livid pallor and her stiff limbs made her look like a dead person; but, from time to time, spasms shook her whole body, from head to foot. M. de Chandore stood on one side, and the marquis, her husband, on the other, watching her with mournful eyes and in perfect silence. They had been thunderstruck; and, from the moment when the fatal sentence fell upon their ears, neither of them had uttered a word.