Part 113

At this instant the Comte Octave de Bauvan opened the door without knocking, and said to the Comte de Granville:

“I have brought you a fair lady, my dear fellow, who did not know which way to turn; she was on the point of losing herself in our labyrinth----”

And Comte Octave led in by the hand the Comtesse de Serizy, who had been wandering about the place for the last quarter of an hour.

“What, you here, madame!” exclaimed the public prosecutor, pushing forward his own armchair, “and at this moment! This, madame, is Monsieur Camusot,” he added, introducing the judge.--“Bauvan,” said he to the distinguished ministerial orator of the Restoration, “wait for me in the president’s chambers; he is still there, and I will join you.”

Comte Octave de Bauvan understood that not merely was he in the way, but that Monsieur de Granville wanted an excuse for leaving his room.

Madame de Serizy had not made the mistake of coming to the Palais de Justice in her handsome carriage with a blue hammer-cloth and coats-of-arms, her coachman in gold lace, and two footmen in breeches and silk stockings. Just as they were starting Asie impressed on the two great ladies the need for taking the hackney coach in which she and the Duchess had arrived, and she had likewise insisted on Lucien’s mistress adopting the costume which is to women what a gray cloak was of yore to men. The Countess wore a plain brown dress, an old black shawl, and a velvet bonnet from which the flowers had been removed, and the whole covered up under a thick lace veil.

“You received our note?” said she to Camusot, whose dismay she mistook for respectful admiration.

“Alas! but too late, Madame la Comtesse,” replied the lawyer, whose tact and wit failed him excepting in his chambers and in presence of a prisoner.

“Too late! How?”

She looked at Monsieur de Granville, and saw consternation written in his face. “It cannot be, it must not be too late!” she added, in the tone of a despot.

Women, pretty women, in the position of Madame de Serizy, are the spoiled children of French civilization. If the women of other countries knew what a woman of fashion is in Paris, a woman of wealth and rank, they would all want to come and enjoy that splendid royalty. The women who recognize no bonds but those of propriety, no law but the petty charter which has been more than once alluded to in this Comedie Humaine as the ladies’ Code, laugh at the statutes framed by men. They say everything, they do not shrink from any blunder or hesitate at any folly, for they all accept the fact that they are irresponsible beings, answerable for nothing on earth but their good repute and their children. They say the most preposterous things with a laugh, and are ready on every occasion to repeat the speech made in the early days of her married life by pretty Madame de Bauvan to her husband, whom she came to fetch away from the Palais: “Make haste and pass sentence, and come away.”

“Madame,” said the public prosecutor, “Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre is not guilty either of robbery or of poisoning; but Monsieur Camusot has led him to confess a still greater crime.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“He acknowledged,” said Monsieur Camusot in her ear, “that he is the friend and pupil of an escaped convict. The Abbe Carlos Herrera, the Spaniard with whom he has been living for the last seven years, is the notorious Jacques Collin.”

Madame de Serizy felt as if it were a blow from an iron rod at each word spoken by the judge, but this name was the finishing stroke.

“And the upshot of all this?” she said, in a voice that was no more than a breath.

“Is,” Monsieur de Granville went on, finishing the Countess’ sentence in an undertone, “that the convict will be committed for trial, and that if Lucien is not committed with him as having profited as an accessory to the man’s crimes, he must appear as a witness very seriously compromised.”

“Oh! never, never!” she cried aloud, with amazing firmness. “For my part, I should not hesitate between death and the disaster of seeing a man whom the world has known to be my dearest friend declared by the bench to be the accomplice of a convict.--The King has a great regard for my husband----”

“Madame,” said the public prosecutor, also aloud, and with a smile, “the King has not the smallest power over the humblest examining judge in his kingdom, nor over the proceedings in any court of justice. That is the grand feature of our new code of laws. I myself have just congratulated M. Camusot on his skill----”

“On his clumsiness,” said the Countess sharply, though Lucien’s intimacy with a scoundrel really disturbed her far less than his attachment to Esther.

“If you will read the minutes of the examination of the two prisoners by Monsieur Camusot, you will see that everything is in his hands----”

After this speech, the only thing the public prosecutor could venture to say, and a flash of feminine--or, if you will, lawyer-like--cunning, he went to the door; then, turning round on the threshold, he added:

“Excuse me, madame; I have two words to say to Bauvan.” Which, translated by the worldly wise, conveyed to the Countess: “I do not want to witness the scene between you and Camusot.”

“What is this examination business?” said Leontine very blandly to Camusot, who stood downcast in the presence of the wife of one of the most important personages in the realm.

“Madame,” said Camusot, “a clerk writes down all the magistrate’s questions and the prisoner’s replies. This document is signed by the clerk, by the judge, and by the prisoner. This evidence is the raw material of the subsequent proceedings; on it the accused are committed for trial, and remanded to appear before the Criminal Court.”

“Well, then,” said she, “if the evidence were suppressed----?”

“Oh, madame, that is a crime which no magistrate could possibly commit--a crime against society.”

“It is a far worse crime against me to have ever allowed it to be recorded; still, at this moment it is the only evidence against Lucien. Come, read me the minutes of his examination that I may see if there is still a way of salvation for us all, monsieur. I do not speak for myself alone--I should quite calmly kill myself--but Monsieur de Serizy’s happiness is also at stake.”