CHAPTER XXIII

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 Chateau. 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 déno?ment (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.