Part 145

“Who pities the judge’s deep sorrow? Who can soothe it? Our glory is to bury it in the depth of our heart. The priest with his life given to God, the soldier with a thousand deaths for his country’s sake, seem to me far happier than the magistrate with his doubts and fears and appalling responsibility.

“You know who the condemned man is?” Monsieur de Granville went on. “A young man of seven-and-twenty--as handsome as he who killed himself yesterday, and as fair; condemned against all our anticipations, for the only proof against him was his concealment of the stolen goods. Though sentenced, the lad will confess nothing! For seventy days he has held out against every test, constantly declaring that he is innocent. For two months I have felt two heads on my shoulders! I would give a year of my life if he would confess, for juries need encouragement; and imagine what a blow it would be to justice if some day it should be discovered that the crime for which he is punished was committed by another.

“In Paris everything is so terribly important; the most trivial incidents in the law courts have political consequences.

“The jury, an institution regarded by the legislators of the Revolution as a source of strength, is, in fact, an instrument of social ruin, for it fails in action; it does not sufficiently protect society. The jury trifles with its functions. The class of jurymen is divided into two parties, one averse to capital punishment; the result is a total upheaval of true equality in administration of the law. Parricide, a most horrible crime, is in some departments treated with leniency, while in others a common murder, so to speak, is punished with death. [There are in penal servitude twenty-three parricides who have been allowed the benefit of extenuating circumstances.] And what would happen if here in Paris, in our home district, an innocent man should be executed!”

“He is an escaped convict,” said Monsieur Camusot, diffidently.

“The Opposition and the Press would make him a paschal lamb!” cried Monsieur de Granville; “and the Opposition would enjoy white-washing him, for he is a fanatical Corsican, full of his native notions, and his murders were a Vendetta. In that island you may kill your enemy, and think yourself, and be thought, a very good man.

“A thorough-paced magistrate, I tell you, is an unhappy man. They ought to live apart from all society, like the pontiffs of old. The world should never see them but at fixed hours, leaving their cells, grave, and old, and venerable, passing sentence like the high priests of antiquity, who combined in their person the functions of judicial and sacerdotal authority. We should be accessible only in our high seat.--As it is, we are to be seen every day, amused or unhappy, like other men. We are to be found in drawing-rooms and at home, as ordinary citizens, moved by our passions; and we seem, perhaps, more grotesque than terrible.”

This bitter cry, broken by pauses and interjections, and emphasized by gestures which gave it an eloquence impossible to reduce to writing, made Camusot’s blood run chill.

“And I, monsieur,” said he, “began yesterday my apprenticeship to the sufferings of our calling.--I could have died of that young fellow’s death. He misunderstood my wish to be lenient, and the poor wretch committed himself.”

“Ah, you ought never to have examined him!” cried Monsieur de Granville; “it is so easy to oblige by doing nothing.”

“And the law, monsieur?” replied Camusot. “He had been in custody two days.”

“The mischief is done,” said the public prosecutor. “I have done my best to remedy what is indeed irremediable. My carriage and servants are following the poor weak poet to the grave. Serizy has sent his too; nay, more, he accepts the duty imposed on him by the unfortunate boy, and will act as his executor. By promising this to his wife he won from her a gleam of returning sanity. And Count Octave is attending the funeral in person.”

“Well, then, Monsieur le Comte,” said Camusot, “let us complete our work. We have a very dangerous man on our hands. He is Jacques Collin--and you know it as well as I do. The ruffian will be recognized----”

“Then we are lost!” cried Monsieur de Granville.

“He is at this moment shut up with your condemned murderer, who, on the hulks, was to him what Lucien has been in Paris--a favorite protege. Bibi-Lupin, disguised as a gendarme, is watching the interview.”

“What business has the superior police to interfere?” said the public prosecutor. “He has no business to act without my orders!”

“All the Conciergerie must know that we have caught Jacques Collin.--Well, I have come on purpose to tell you that this daring felon has in his possession the most compromising letters of Lucien’s correspondence with Madame de Serizy, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu.”

“Are you sure of that?” asked Monsieur de Granville, his face full of pained surprise.

“You shall hear, Monsieur le Comte, what reason I have to fear such a misfortune. When I untied the papers found in the young man’s rooms, Jacques Collin gave a keen look at the parcel, and smiled with satisfaction in a way that no examining judge could misunderstand. So deep a villain as Jacques Collin takes good care not to let such a weapon slip through his fingers. What is to be said if these documents should be placed in the hands of counsel chosen by that rascal from among the foes of the government and the aristocracy!--My wife, to whom the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse has shown so much kindness, is gone to warn her, and by this time they must be with the Grandlieus holding council.”

“But we cannot possibly try the man!” cried the public prosecutor, rising and striding up and down the room. “He must have put the papers in some safe place----”

“I know where,” said Camusot.

These words finally effaced every prejudice the public prosecutor had felt against him.

“Well, then----” said Monsieur de Granville, sitting down again.

“On my way here this morning I reflected deeply on this miserable business. Jacques Collin has an aunt--an aunt by nature, not putative--a woman concerning whom the superior police have communicated a report to the Prefecture. He is this woman’s pupil and idol; she is his father’s sister, her name is Jacqueline Collin. This wretched woman carries on a trade as a wardrobe purchaser, and by the connection this business has secured her she gets hold of many family secrets. If Jacques Collin has intrusted those papers, which would be his salvation, to any one’s keeping, it is to that of this creature. Have her arrested.”

The public prosecutor gave Camusot a keen look, as much as to say, “This man is not such a fool as I thought him; he is still young, and does not yet know how to handle the reins of justice.”

“But,” Camusot went on, “in order to succeed, we must give up all the plans we laid yesterday, and I came to take your advice--your orders----”

The public prosecutor took up his paper-knife and tapped it against the edge of the table with one of the tricky movements familiar to thoughtful men when they give themselves up to meditation.

“Three noble families involved!” he exclaimed. “We must not make the smallest blunder!--You are right: as a first step let us act on Fouche’s principle, ‘Arrest!’--and Jacques Collin must at once be sent back to the secret cells.”