Honore de Balzac (26 page)

"They've laid their finger on it," thought the notary.

But each shrewd head considered the following up of this point useless.
Bordin reflected that Grevin would be silent as the grave; and Grevin
congratulated himself that every sign of the fire had been effaced.

To settle this point, which seemed a mere accessory to the trial and
somewhat puerile (but which is really essential in the justification
which history owes to these young men), the experts and Pigoult, who
were despatched by the president to examine the park, reported that they
could find no traces of a bonfire.

Bordin summoned two laborers, who testified to having dug over, under
the direction of the forester, a tract of ground in the park where
the grass had been burned; but they declared they had not observed the
nature of the ashes they had buried.

The forester, recalled by the defence, said he had received from the
senator himself, as he was passing the chateau of Gondreville on his way
to the masquerade at Arcis, an order to dig over that particular piece
of ground which the senator had remarked as needing it.

"Had papers, or herbage been burned there?"

"I could not say. I saw nothing that made me think that papers had been
burned there," replied the forester.

"At any rate," said Bordin, "if, as it appears, a fire was kindled on
that piece of ground some one brought to the spot whatever was burned
there."

The testimony of the abbe and that of Mademoiselle Goujet made a
favorable impression. They said that as they left the church after
vespers and were walking towards home, they met the four gentlemen
and Michu leaving the chateau on horseback and making their way to
the forest. The character, position, and known uprightness of the Abbe
Goujet gave weight to his words.

The summing up of the public prosecutor, who felt sure of obtaining a
verdict, was in the nature of all such speeches. The prisoners were the
incorrigible enemies of France, her institutions and laws. They thirsted
for tumult and conspiracy. Though they had belonged to the army of Conde
and had shared in the late attempts against the life of the Emperor,
that magnanimous sovereign had erased their names from the list of
emigres
. This was the return they made for his clemency! In short, all
the oratorical declamations of the Bourbons against the Bonapartists,
which in our day are repeated against the republicans and the
legitimists by the Younger Branch, flourished in the speech. These trite
commonplaces, which might have some meaning under a fixed government,
seem farcical in the mouth of administrators of all epochs and opinions.
A saying of the troublous times of yore is still applicable: "The label
is changed, but the wine is the same as ever." The public prosecutor,
one of the most distinguished legal men under the Empire, attributed
the crime to a fixed determination on the part of returned
emigres
to
protest against the sale of their estates. He made the audience shudder
at the probable condition of the senator; then he massed together
proofs, half-proofs, and probabilities with a cleverness stimulated by
a sense that his zeal was certain of its reward, and sat down tranquilly
to await the fire of his opponents.

Monsieur de Grandville never argued but this one criminal case; and it
made his reputation. In the first place, he spoke with the same glowing
eloquence which to-day we admire in Berryer. He was profoundly convinced
of the innocence of his clients, and that in itself is a most powerful
auxiliary of speech. The following are the chief points of his defence,
which was reported in full by all the leading newspapers of the period.
In the first place he exhibited the character and life of Michu in its
true light. He made it a noble tale, ringing with lofty sentiments, and
it awakened the sympathies of many. When Michu heard himself vindicated
by that eloquent voice, tears sprang from his yellow eyes and rolled
down his terrible face. He appeared then for what he really was,—a man
as simple and as wily as a child; a being whose whole existence had
but one thought, one aim. He was suddenly explained to the minds of all
present, more especially by his tears, which produced a great effect
upon the jury. His able defender seized that moment of strong interest
to enter upon a discussion of the charges:—

"Where is the body of the person abducted? Where is the senator?" he
asked. "You accuse us of walling him up with stones and plaster. If so,
we alone know where he is; you have kept us twenty-three days in prison,
and the senator must be dead by this time for want of food. We are
therefore murderers, but you have not accused us of murder. On the other
hand, if he still lives, we must have accomplices. If we have them, and
if the senator is living, we should assuredly have set him at liberty.
The scheme in relation to Gondreville which you attribute to us is a
failure, and only aggravates our position uselessly. We might perhaps
obtain a pardon for an abortive attempt by releasing our victim; instead
of that we persist in detaining a man from whom we can obtain no
benefit whatever. It is absurd! Take away your plaster; the effect is
a failure," he said, addressing the public prosecutor. "We are either
idiotic criminals (which you do not believe) or the innocent victims of
circumstances as inexplicable to us as they are to you. You ought rather
to search for the mass of papers which were burned at Gondreville, which
will reveal motives stronger far than yours or ours and put you on the
track of the causes of this abduction."

The speaker discussed these hypotheses with marvellous ability. He dwelt
on the moral character of the witnesses for the defence, whose religious
faith was a living one, who believed in a future life and in eternal
punishment. He rose to grandeur in this part of his speech and moved his
hearers deeply:—

"Remember!" he said; "these criminals were tranquilly dining when told
of the abduction of the senator. When the officer of gendarmes intimated
to them the best means of ending the whole affair by giving up the
senator, they refused, for they did not understand what was asked of
them!"

Then, reverting to the mystery of the matter, he declared that its
solution was in the hands of time, which would eventually reveal the
injustice of the charge. Once on this ground, he boldly and ingeniously
supposed himself a juror; related his deliberations with his colleagues;
imagined his distress lest, having condemned the innocent, the error
should be known too late, and drew such a picture of his remorse,
dwelling on the grave doubts which the case presented, that he brought
the jury to a condition of intense anxiety.

Juries were not in those days so blase to this sort of allocution as
they are now; Monsieur de Grandville's appeal had the power of things
new, and the jurors were evidently shaken. After this passionate
outburst they had to listen to the wily and specious prosecutor, who
went over the whole case, brought out the darkest points against the
prisoners and made the rest inexplicable. His aim was to reach the
minds and the reasoning faculties of his hearers just as Monsieur de
Grandville had aimed at the heart and the imagination. The latter,
however, had seriously entangled the convictions of the jury, and the
public prosecutor found his well-laid arguments ineffectual. This was
so plain that the counsel for the Messieurs d'Hauteserre and Gothard
appealed to the judgment of the jury, asking that the case against their
clients be abandoned. The prosecutor demanded a postponement till the
next day in order that he might prepare an answer. Bordin, who saw
acquittal in the eyes of the jury if they deliberated on the case at
once, opposed the delay of even one night by arguments of legal right
and justice to his innocent clients; but in vain,—the court allowed it.

"The interests of society are as great as those of the accused," said
the president. "The court would be lacking in equity if it denied a like
request when made by the defence; it ought therefore to grant that of
the prosecution."

"All is luck or ill-luck!" said Bordin to his clients when the session
was over. "Almost acquitted tonight you may be condemned to-morrow."

"In either case," said the elder de Simeuse, "we can only admire your
skill."

Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne's eyes were full of tears. After the doubts
and fears of the counsel for the defence, she had not expected this
success. Those around her congratulated her and predicted the acquittal
of her cousins. But alas! the matter was destined to end in a startling
and almost theatrical event, the most unexpected and disastrous
circumstance which ever changed the face of a criminal trial.

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 snatched 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 assembled 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 circumstances. 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 assured 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 identity 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.