THE VICOMTESSE DE CAMBES.XXI.

A terrified silence, broken only by the receding footsteps of the captain of the guards, and by the constantly increasing murmur of the multitude without, followed this order, which gave the rebellion of Messieurs les Princes a more terrible and perilous aspect than any it had as yet assumed. Its inevitable effect was by a single act to place the princess and her advisers, the army and the city, outside the pale of the law; it was to burden an entire population with responsibility for the selfishness and passions of the few; it was to do on a small scale what the Commune of Paris did on the 2d of September. But, as we know, the Commune of Paris acted on a grand scale.

Not a sound could be heard in the hall; all eyes were fixed upon the door through which the prisoner was expected to appear. The princess, in order to act out her part of presiding magistrate, made a pretence of looking over the lists; Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld had assumed a musing expression, and Monsieur de Bouillon was talking with Madame de Tourville about his gout, which caused him much suffering.

Lenet approached the princess to make a last effort; not that he had any hope of success, but he was one of those conscientious men, who fulfil a duty because their conscience imposes upon them the obligation to do so.

"Consider, madame," said he, "that you are risking the future of your house upon a single throw."

"There is no great merit in that," said the princess dryly, "for I am sure to win."

"Monsieur le Duc," said Lenet, turning to La Rochefoucauld, "do not you, who are so superior to commonplace motives and vulgar human passions, advise moderation?"

"Monsieur," retorted the duke, hypocritically, "I am at this moment discussing the point with my reason."

"Discuss it rather with your conscience, Monsieur le Duc," replied Lenet; "that would be much better."

At that moment they heard the sound of the outer door closing. The sound echoed in every heart, for it announced the arrival of one of the two prisoners. Soon steps resounded on the stairway, halberds rang upon the flags, the door opened, and Canolles appeared.

He had never appeared so distinguished, had never been so handsome; his calm, unmoved face had retained the cheerful expression of happy ignorance. He came forward with easy, unaffected bearing, as he might have done in the salon of Monsieur Lavie, or Président Lalasne, and respectfully saluted the princess and the dukes.

The princess was amazed at his perfect ease of manner, and gazed at the young man for a moment without speaking.

At last she broke the silence.

"Come forward, monsieur," said she.

Canolles obeyed and saluted a second time.

"Who are you?"

"I am Baron Louis de Canolles, madame."

"What rank did you hold in the royal army?"

"I was lieutenant-colonel."

"Were you not governor of ?le Saint-Georges?"

"I had that honor."

"You have told the truth?"

"In every point, madame."

"Have you taken down the questions and answers, master clerk?"

The clerk bowed.

"Sign, monsieur," said the princess.

Canolles took the pen with the air of a man who does not understand the purpose of a command, but obeys out of deference to the rank of the person who makes it, and signed his name with a smile.

"'Tis well, monsieur," said the princess; "you may now retire."

Canolles saluted his judges once more, and withdrew with the same grace and freedom from constraint, and with no manifestation of surprise or curiosity.

The door was no sooner closed behind him than the princess rose.

"Well, messieurs?" said she with a questioning accent.

"Well, madame, let us vote," said the Duc de La Rochefoucauld.

"Let us vote," echoed the Duc de Bouillon. "Will these gentlemen be kind enough to express their opinion?" he added, turning to the municipal dignitaries.

"After you, monseigneur," replied one of them.

"Nay, nay, before you!" cried a sonorous voice, in which there was such an accent of determination that everybody stared in amazement.

"What does this mean?" demanded the princess, trying to identify the owner of the voice.

"It means," cried a man, rising, so that there should be no doubt as to his identity, "that I, André Lavie, king's advocate and counsellor of parliament, demand in the king's name, and in the name of humanity, for prisoners detained in Bordeaux upon parole, the privileges and guaranties to which they are entitled. Consequently, my conclusion is—"

"Oho! Monsieur l'Avocat," exclaimed the princess with a shrug, "none of your court jargon in my presence, I pray you, for I do not understand it. This is an affair of sentiment that we are engaged upon, and not a paltry pettifogging lawsuit; every one who has a seat upon this tribunal will understand the propriety of this course, I presume."

"Yes, yes," rejoined the sheriffs and the officers in chorus; "vote, messieurs, vote!"

"I said, and I say again," continued Lavie; unabashed by the princess's rebuke, "I demand their privileges and guaranties for prisoners detained on parole. This is no question of lawsuits, but of the law of nations!"

"And I say, furthermore," cried Lenet, "that Richon was heard in his own defence before he met his cruel fate, and that it is no more than fair that we should hear these accused persons."

"And I," said D'Espagnet, the militia officer, who took part in the attack upon Saint-Georges with Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld, "I declare that if any clemency be shown, the city will rise in revolt."

A shout from without seemed to echo and confirm his words.

"Let us make haste," said the princess. "What penalty shall we inflict upon the accused?"

"There are two of them, madame," suggested several voices.

"Is not one enough for you, pray?" retorted Lenet, smiling scornfully at this sanguinary servility.

"Which shall it be, then; which?" demanded the same voices.

"The fattest one, cannibals!" cried Lavie. "Ah! you complain of injustice and shout sacrilege, and yet you propose to reply to an assassination by two murders! A noble combination of philosophers and soldiers melted together into murderers!"

The flashing eyes of the majority of the judges seemed quite ready to blast the courageous king's advocate. Madame de Condé had risen from her chair and was looking inquiringly into the faces of those about her as if to assure herself that the words she had heard had really been uttered, and if there really was a man on earth bold enough to say such things in her presence.

Lavie realized that his continued presence would result in adding to the bitter feeling, and that his manner of defending the accused would destroy instead of saving them. He determined to retire, therefore, but to retire rather as a judge declining to serve than as a soldier taking to his heels.

"In the name of God Almighty," said he, "I protest against what you propose to do; in the king's name, I forbid it!"

With that, he overturned his arm-chair with a wrathful gesture, and stalked out of the room with his head in the air, like a man strong in the consciousness of duty well done, and indifferent to the possible results thereof.

"Insolent!" muttered the princess.

"No matter! no matter! let him have his way," said several; "Master Lavie's turn will come."

"Let us vote!" exclaimed the judges, almost as one man.

"But why vote without hearing the accused?" said Lenet. "Perhaps one of them will seem to you more guilty than the other. Perhaps you will conclude to concentrate upon a single head the vengeance which you now propose to divide between two."

At that moment the outer door was heard a second time.

"Very good!" said the princess, "we will vote upon both at once."

The judges, who had left their seats in disorder, sat down once more. Again the sound of footsteps was heard, accompanied by the ringing of halberds on the flags; the door opened once more and Cauvignac appeared.

The newcomer presented a striking contrast to Canolles; his garments still showed the effects of his encounter with the populace, despite the pains he had taken to efface them; his eyes glanced hastily from the sheriffs to the officers, from the dukes to the princess, embracing the whole tribunal in a sort of circular glance; then, with the air of a fox devising a stratagem, he came forward, feeling the ground at every step, so to speak, with every faculty on the alert, but pale and visibly disturbed.

"Your Highness did me the honor to summon me to your presence," he began, without waiting to be questioned.

"Yes, monsieur, for I desired to be enlightened upon certain points relative to yourself, which cause us some perplexity."

"In that case," rejoined Cauvignac, with a bow, "I am here, madame, ready to requite the honor your Highness is pleased to confer upon me."

He bowed with the most graceful air he could muster, but it was clearly lacking in ease and naturalness.

"That you may do very speedily," said the princess, "if your answers are as definite as our questions."

"Allow me to remind your Highness," said Cauvignac, "that, as the question is always prepared beforehand, and the response never, it is more difficult to respond than to question."

"Oh! our questions will be so clear and precise," said the princess, "that you will be spared any necessity for reflecting upon them. Your name?"

"Ah! madame, there you are! there is a most embarrassing question, first of all."

"How so?"

"It often happens that one has two names, the name one has received from his family, and the name one has received from himself. Take my own case as an example: I thought that I had sufficient reason for laying aside my first name in favor of another less widely known; which of the two names do you require me to give you?"

"That under which you presented yourself at Chantilly, that under which you agreed to raise a company in my interest, that under which you did raise it, and that under which you sold yourself to Monsieur de Mazarin."

"Pardon me, madame," said Cauvignac; "but I have the impression that I had the honor to reply satisfactorily to all these questions during the audience your Highness was graciously pleased to grant me this morning."

"At this time I put but one question to you," said the princess beginning to lose patience. "I simply ask you your name."

"Very true! but that is just what embarrasses me."

"Write Baron de Cauvignac," said the princess.

The accused made no objection, and the clerk wrote as directed.

"Now, your rank?" said the princess; "I trust you will find no difficulty in replying to this question."

"On the contrary, madame, that is one of the most embarrassing questions you could put to me. If you refer to my rank as a scholar, I am a bachelor of letters, licentiate in law, doctor of theology; I reply, as your Highness sees, without hesitation."

"No, monsieur, we refer to your military rank."

"Ah, yes! upon that point it is impossible for me to reply to your Highness."

"How so?"

"Because I have never really known what I was myself."

"Try to make up your mind upon that point, monsieur, for I am anxious to know."

"Very well; in the first place I constituted myself a lieutenant on my own authority; but as I had no power to sign a commission, and as I never had more than six men under my orders while I bore that title, I fancy that I have no right to take advantage of it."

"But I myself made you a captain," said the princess, "and you are therefore a captain."

"Ah! that is just where my embarrassment redoubles, and my conscience cries more loudly than ever. For I have since become convinced that every military grade in the State must emanate from the royal authority in order to have any value. Now, your Highness did, beyond question, desire to make me a captain, but in my opinion you had not the right. That being so, I am no more a captain now than I was a lieutenant before."

"Even so, monsieur; assume that you were not a lieutenant by virtue of your own act, and that you are not a captain by mine, as neither you nor I have the right to sign a commission; at least you are governor of Braune; and as the king himself signed your commission you will not contest its validity."

"In very truth, madame, it is the most contestable of the three."

"How so?" cried the princess.

"I was appointed, I grant you, but I never entered upon my duties. What constitutes the title? Not the bare possession of the title itself, but the performance of the functions attached to the title. Now, I never performed a single one of the functions of the post to which I was promoted; I never set foot in my jurisdiction; there was on my part no entrance upon my duties; therefore I am no more governor of Braune than I was a captain before being governor, or a lieutenant before being a captain."

"But you were taken upon the road to Braune, monsieur."

"True; but a hundred yards beyond the point where I was arrested, the road divides; thence one road leads to Braune, but the other to Isson. Who can say that I was not going to Isson, rather than to Braune?"

"Enough," said the princess; "the tribunal will take under consideration the force of your defence. Clerk, write him down governor of Braune."

"I cannot prevent your Highness from ordering the clerk to write down whatever seems best to you."

"It is done, madame," said the clerk.

"Good. Now, monsieur, sign your deposition."

"It would give me the greatest pleasure, madame," said Cauvignac; "I should be enchanted to do anything that would be agreeable to your Highness; but in the struggle I was forced to wage this morning against the populace of Bordeaux,—a struggle in which your Highness so generously came to my rescue with your musketeers,—I had the misfortune to have my right wrist injured, and it has always been impossible for me to write with my left hand."

"Record the refusal of the accused to sign, monsieur," said the princess to the clerk.

"Impossibility, monsieur; write impossibility," said Cauvignac. "God forbid that I should refuse to do anything in my power at the bidding of so great a princess as your Highness!"

With that, Cauvignac bowed with the utmost respect, and left the room, accompanied by his two guards.

"I think that you were right, Monsieur Lenet," said the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "and that we were wrong not to make sure of that man."

Lenet was too preoccupied to reply. This time his usual perspicacity was sadly at fault; he hoped that Cauvignac would draw down the wrath of the tribunal upon his single head; but with his everlasting subterfuges he had amused his judges rather than irritated them. Moreover his examination had destroyed all the effect, if any, produced by Canolles; and the noble bearing, the outspokenness and loyalty of the first prisoner had disappeared, if we may say so, beneath the wiles of the second. Cauvignac had effaced Canolles.

And so when the vote was taken, every vote was given for death.

The princess, after the votes were counted, rose and solemnly pronounced the judgment of the court. Then each one in turn signed the record of the sitting. First the Duc d'Enghien, poor child, who knew not what he was signing, and whose first signature was to cost the life of a man; then the princess, then the dukes, then the ladies of the council, then the officers and sheriffs. Thus everybody had a share in the reprisals. Nobility and bourgeoisie, army and parliament, everybody must be punished for the act of vengeance. As everybody knows, when all the world in general must be punished, the result is that nobody at all is punished.

When the last signature had been appended, the princess, who had her vengeance in her grasp at last, and whose pride was satisfied thereby, went herself and opened the window, which had been opened twice before, and, yielding to her consuming thirst for popularity, exclaimed in a loud voice:—

"Men of Bordeaux, Richon will be avenged, and fitly; rely upon us for that."

A shout of joy, like the roar of thunder, welcomed this declaration, and the people scattered through the streets, happy in the anticipation of the spectacle promised by the words of the princess.

But Madame de Condé had no sooner returned to her own room with Lenet, who followed her sadly, still hoping to induce her to change her resolution, than the door was thrown open, and Madame de Cambes, pale as death and weeping bitterly, threw herself at her feet.

"O madame, in Heaven's name, listen to me!" she cried: "in Heaven's name do not turn me away!"

"What's the matter, pray, my child?" inquired the princess. "Why do you weep?"

"I weep, madame, because I have learned that the judges voted for death, and that you ratified their vote; and yet, madame, you cannot put Monsieur de Canolles to death."

"Why not, my dear, I pray to know? they put Richon to death."

"Because, madame, this same Monsieur de Canolles saved your Highness at Chantilly."

"Ought I to thank him for being deceived by our stratagem?"

"Ah! madame, that's where you are in error; Monsieur de Canolles was not for one instant deceived by the substitution. He recognized me at the first glance."

"Recognized you, Claire?"

"Yes, madame. We made a part of the journey together; Monsieur de Canolles—Monsieur de Canolles was in love with me; and under those circumstances—Ah! madame, perhaps he did wrong, but it is not for you to reproach him for it,—under those circumstances he sacrificed his duty to his love."

"So the man whom you love—"

"Yes," said the viscountess.

"The man whom you asked my leave to marry—"

"Yes."

"Was—"

"Was Monsieur de Canolles himself!" cried the viscountess,—"Monsieur de Canolles, who surrendered to me at Saint-Georges, and who, except for me, would have blown up the citadel with himself and your soldiers,—Monsieur de Canolles, who might have escaped, but who surrendered his sword to me rather than be parted from me. You see, therefore, that if he dies, I must die, too, madame; for his death will lie at my door!"

"My dear child," said the princess, deeply moved, "consider, I pray you, that what you ask is impossible. Richon is dead, and Richon must be avenged. The matter has been duly discussed, and the judgment must be executed; if my husband himself should ask what you ask, I would refuse him."

"Oh! wretched creature that I am!" cried Madame de Cambes, throwing herself upon the floor, and sobbing as if her heart would break; "I have destroyed my lover!"

Thereupon Lenet, who had not as yet spoken, approached the princess.

"Madame," said he, "is not one victim enough? Must you have two heads to pay for Monsieur Richon's?"

"Aha!" said the princess, "monsieur the upright man! that means that you ask the life of one and the death of the other. Is that absolutely just? Tell me."

"It is just, madame, when two men are to die, in the first place that one only should die, if possible, assuming that any mouth has the right to blow out the torch lighted by God's hand. In the second place, it is just, if there is anything to choose between the two, that the upright man should be preferred to the schemer. One must needs be a Jew to set Barabbas at liberty and crucify Jesus."

"Oh! Monsieur Lenet! Monsieur Lenet!" cried Claire, "plead for me, I implore you! for you are a man, and mayhap you will be listened to. And do you, madame," she continued, turning to the princess, "remember that I have passed my life in the service of your family."

"And so have I," said Lenet; "and yet I have asked no reward for thirty years of fidelity to your Highness; but at this juncture, if your Highness is without pity, I will ask a single favor in exchange for these thirty years of fidelity."

"What might it be?"

"That you will give me my dismissal, madame, so that I may throw myself at the king's feet, and consecrate to him what remains of the life I had devoted to the honor of your family."

"Ah, well!" exclaimed the princess, vanquished by this combined attack, "do not threaten, my old friend; do not weep, my sweet Claire; be comforted both, for only one shall die, since you will have it so; but do not come and seek pardon for the one who is destined to die."

Claire seized the princess's hand and devoured it with kisses.

"Oh! thanks, madame! thanks!" she sobbed; "from this moment my life and his are at your service."

"In taking this course, madame," said Lenet, "you will be at the same time just and merciful; which, hitherto, has been the prerogative of God alone."

"And now, madame," cried Claire, impatiently, "may I see him? may I set him free?"

"Such a demonstration at this moment is out of the question," said the princess; "it would injure us irreparably. Let us leave them both in prison; we will take them out at the same time, one to be set at liberty, the other to go to his death."

"But may I not at least see him, to set his mind at rest, to comfort him?"

"To set his mind at rest?" said the princess; "my dear child, I think that you have not the right; the reversal of the judgment would be discovered and commented upon. No, it cannot be; be content to know that he is safe. I will make known my decision to the two dukes."

"I will be patient, madame. Thanks! thanks!" cried Claire; and she fled from the room, to weep at her ease, and thank God from the bottom of her heart, which was overflowing with joy and gratitude.