Monsieur Lecoq Émile Gaboriau (popular books of all time .txt) 📖

dare anything for the sake of giving free utterance to his thought, but the baron checked him.

“Do not try to defend me,” he said, calmly; “it would be labor wasted. I have only a word to say to my judges. Let them remember what the noble and generous Marshal Moncey wrote to the King: ‘The scaffold does not make friends.’ ”

This recollection was not of a nature to soften the hearts of the judges. The marshal, for that saying, had been deprived of his office, and condemned to three months’ imprisonment.

As the advocates made no further attempt to argue the case, the commission retired to deliberate. This gave M. d’Escorval an opportunity to speak with his defenders. He shook them warmly by the hand, and thanked them for their devotion and for their courage.

The good man wept.

Then the baron, turning to the oldest among them, quickly and in a low voice said:

“I have a last favor to ask of you. When the sentence of death shall have been pronounced upon me, go at once to my son. You will say to him that his dying father commands him to live; he will understand you. Tell him it is my last wish; that he live⁠—live for his mother!”

He said no more; the judges were returning.

Of the thirty prisoners, nine were declared not guilty, and released.

The remaining twenty-one, and M. d’Escorval and Chanlouineau were among the number, were condemned to death.

But the smile had not once forsaken Chanlouineau’s lips.

XXVIII

The abbé had been right in feeling he could trust the officers to whose care he had confided Maurice.

Finding their entreaties would not induce him to leave the citadel, they seized him and literally carried him away. He made the most desperate efforts to escape; each step was a struggle.

“Leave me!” he exclaimed; “let me go where duty calls me. You only dishonor me in pretending to save me.”

His agony was terrible. He had thrown himself headlong into this absurd undertaking, and now the responsibility of his acts had fallen upon his father. He, the culprit, would live, and his innocent father would perish on the guillotine. It was to this his love for Marie-Anne had led him, that radiant love which in other days had smiled so joyously.

But our capacity for suffering has its limits.

When they had carried him to the room in the hotel where his mother and Marie-Anne were waiting in agonized surprise, that irresistible torpor which follows suffering too intense for human endurance, crept over him.

“Nothing is decided yet,” the officers answered in response to Mme. d’Escorval’s questions. “The curé will hasten here as soon as the verdict is rendered.”

Then, as they had promised not to lose sight of Maurice, they seated themselves in gloomy silence.

The house was silent. One might have supposed the hotel deserted. At last, a little before four o’clock, the abbé came in, followed by the lawyer to whom the baron had confided his last wishes.

“My husband!” exclaimed Mme. d’Escorval, springing wildly from her chair.

The priest bowed his head; she understood.

“Death!” she faltered. “They have condemned him!”

And overcome by the terrible blow, she sank back, inert, with hanging arms.

But the weakness did not last long; she again sprang up, her eyes brilliant with heroic resolve.

“We must save him!” she exclaimed. “We must wrest him from the scaffold. Up, Maurice! up, Marie-Anne! No more weak lamentations, we must to work! You, also, gentlemen, will aid me. I can count upon your assistance, Monsieur le Curé. What are we going to do? I do not know! But something must be done. The death of this just man would be too great a crime. God will not permit it.”

She suddenly paused, with clasped hands, and eyes uplifted to heaven, as if seeking divine inspiration.

“And the King,” she resumed; “will the King consent to such a crime? No. A king can refuse mercy, but he cannot refuse justice. I will go to him. I will tell him all! Why did not this thought come to me sooner? We must start for Paris without losing an instant. Maurice, you will accompany me. One of you gentlemen will go at once and order post-horses.”

Thinking they would obey her, she hastened into the next room to make preparations for her journey.

“Poor woman!” the lawyer whispered to the abbé, “she does not know that the sentence of a military commission is executed in twenty-four hours.”

“Well?”

“It requires four days to make the journey to Paris.”

He reflected a moment, then added:

“But, after all, to let her go would be an act of mercy. Did not Ney, on the morning of his execution, implore the King to order the removal of his wife who was sobbing and moaning in his cell?”

The abbé shook his head.

“No,” said he; “Madame d’Escorval will never forgive us if we prevent her from receiving her husband’s last farewell.”

She, at that very moment, re-entered the room, and the priest was trying to gather courage to tell her the cruel truth, when someone knocked violently at the door.

One of the officers went to open it, and Bavois, the corporal of grenadiers, entered, his right hand lifted to his cap, as if he were in the presence of his superior officer.

“Is Mademoiselle Lacheneur here?” he demanded.

Marie-Anne came forward.

“I am she, Monsieur,” she replied; “what do you desire of me?”

“I am ordered, Mademoiselle, to conduct you to the citadel.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Maurice, in a ferocious tone; “so they imprison women also!”

The worthy corporal struck himself a heavy blow upon the forehead.

“I am an old stupid!” he exclaimed, “and express myself badly. I meant to say that I came to seek mademoiselle at the request of one of the condemned, a man named Chanlouineau, who desires to speak with her.”

“Impossible, my good man,” said one of the officers; “they would not allow this lady to visit one of the condemned without special permission⁠—”

“Well, she has this permission,” said the old soldier.

Assuring himself, with a glance, that he had nothing to fear from anyone present, he added, in