The Companions of Jehu, Alexandre Dumas [great books of all time .txt] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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There was a movement of feverish anxiety among the audience. What could have happened? What unexpected event was about to take place? Every one looked anxiously at his neighbor. Amélie’s heart was wrung by a presentiment. She pressed her hand to her breast; it was as though an ice-cold iron had pierced it to the springs of life.
The gendarmes rose. The prisoners did likewise, and were then marched back to their cells. One after the other they passed Amélie. The hands of the lovers touched each other; those of Amélie were as cold as death.
“Whatever happens, thank you,” said Charles, as he passed.
Amélie tried to answer, but the words died on her lips.
During this time the judge had risen and passed into the council-chamber. There he found a veiled woman, who had just descended from a carriage at the door of the courthouse, and had not spoken to any one on her way in.
“Madame,” said the judge, “I offer you many excuses for the way in which I have brought you from Paris; but the life of a man depends upon it, and before that consideration everything must yield.”
“You have no need to excuse yourself, sir,” replied the veiled lady, “I know the prerogatives of the law, and I am here at your orders.”
“Madame,” said the judge, “the court and myself recognize the feeling of delicacy which prompted you, when first confronted with the prisoners, to decline to recognize the one who assisted you when fainting. At that time the prisoners denied their identity with the pillagers of the diligences. Since then they have confessed all; but it is our wish to know the one who showed you that consideration, in order that we may recommend him to the First Consul’s clemency.”
“What!” exclaimed the lady, “have they really confessed?”
“Yes, madame, but they will not say which of their number helped you, fearing, no doubt, to contradict your testimony, and thus cause you embarrassment.”
“What is it you request of me, sir?”
“That you will save the gentleman who assisted you.”
“Oh! willingly,” said the lady, rising; “what am I to do?”
“Answer a question which I shall ask you.”
“I am ready, sir.”
“Wait here a moment. You will be sent for presently.”
The judge went back into the courtroom. A gendarme was placed at each door to prevent any one from approaching the lady. The judge resumed his seat.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “the session is reopened.”
General excitement prevailed. The ushers called for silence, and silence was restored.
“Bring in the witness,” said the judge.
An usher opened the door of the council-chamber, and the lady, still veiled, was brought into court. All eyes turned upon her. Who was she? Why was she there? What had she come for? Amélie’s eyes fastened upon her at once.
“O my God!” she murmured, “grant that I be mistaken.”
“Madame,” said the judge, “the prisoners are about to be brought in. Have the goodness to point out the one who, when the Geneva diligence was stopped, paid you those attentions.”
A shudder ran through the audience. They felt that some fatal trap had been laid for the prisoners.
A dozen voices began to shout: “Say nothing!” but the ushers, at a sign from the judge, cried out imperatively: “Silence!”
Amélie’s heart turned deadly cold. A cold sweat poured from her forehead. Her knees gave way and trembled under her.
“Bring in the prisoners,” said the judge, imposing silence by a look as the usher had with his voice. “And you, madame, have the goodness to advance and raise your veil.”
The veiled lady obeyed.
“My mother!” cried Amélie, but in a voice so choked that only those near her heard the words.
“Madame de Montrevel!” murmured the audience.
At that moment the first gendarme appeared at the door, then the second. After him came the prisoners, but not in the same order as before. Morgan had placed himself third, so that, separated as he was from the gendarmes by Montbar and Adler in front and d’Assas behind, he might be better able to clasp Amélie’s hand.
Montbar entered first.
Madame de Montrevel shook her head.
Then came Adler.
Madame de Montrevel made the same negative sign.
Just then Morgan passed before Amélie.
“We are lost!” she said.
He looked at her in astonishment as she pressed his hand convulsively. Then he entered.
“That is he,” said Madame de Montrevel, as soon as she saw Morgan—or, if the reader prefers it, Baron Charles de Sainte-Hermine—who was now proved one and the same man by means of Madame de Montrevel’s identification.
A long cry of distress burst from the audience. Montbar burst into a laugh.
“Ha! by my faith!” he cried, “that will teach you, dear friend, to play the gallant with fainting women.” Then, turning to Madame de Montrevel, he added: “With three short words, madame, you have decapitated four heads.”
A terrible silence fell, in the midst of which a groan was heard.
“Usher,” said the judge, “have you warned the public that all marks of approbation or disapproval are forbidden?”
The usher inquired who had disobeyed the order of the court. It was a woman wearing the dress of a Bressan peasant, who was being carried into the jailer’s room.
From that moment the accused made no further attempt at denial; but, just as Morgan had united with them when arrested, they now joined with him. Their four heads should be saved, or fall together.
That same day, at ten in the evening, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty, and the court pronounced the sentence of death.
Three days later, by force of entreaties, the lawyers obtained permission for the accused to appeal their case; but they were not admitted to bail.
The verdict rendered by the jury of the town of Bourg had a terrible effect, not only in the courtroom, but throughout the entire town. The four prisoners had shown such chivalric brotherhood, such noble bearing, such deep conviction in the faith they professed, that their enemies themselves admired the devotion which had made robbers and highwaymen of men of rank and family.
Madame de Montrevel, overwhelmed by the part she had been made to play at the crucial point of this drama, saw but one means of repairing the evil she had done, and that was to start at once for Paris and fling herself at the feet of the First Consul, imploring him to pardon the four condemned men. She did not even take time to go to the Château des Noires-Fontaines to see Amélie. She knew that Bonaparte’s departure was fixed for the first week in May, and this was already the 6th. When she last left Paris everything had been prepared for that departure.
She wrote a line to Amélie explaining by what fatal deception she had been instrumental in destroying the lives of four men, when she intended to save the life of one. Then, as if ashamed of having broken the pledge she had made to Amélie, and above all to herself, she ordered fresh post-horses and returned to Paris.
She arrived there on the morning of the 8th of May. Bonaparte had started on the evening of the 6th. He said on leaving that he was only going to Dijon, possibly as far as Geneva, but in any case he should not be absent more than three weeks. The prisoners’ appeal, even if rejected, would not receive final consideration for five or six weeks. All hope need not therefore be abandoned.
But, alas! it became evident that the review at Dijon was only a pretext, that the journey to Geneva had never been seriously thought of, and that Bonaparte, instead of going to Switzerland, was really on his way to Italy.
Then Madame de Montrevel, unwilling to appeal to her son, for she had heard his oath when Lord Tanlay had been left for dead, and knew the part he had played in the capture of the Companions of Jehu—then Madame de Montrevel appealed to Josephine, and Josephine promised to write to the First Consul. That same evening she kept her promise.
But the trial had made a great stir. It was not with these prisoners as with ordinary men. Justice made haste, and thirty-five days after the verdict had been rendered the, appeal was rejected. This decision was immediately sent to Bourg with an order to execute the prisoners within twenty-four hours. But notwithstanding the haste of the minister of police in forwarding this decision, the first intimation of the fatal news was not received by the judicial authorities at Bourg. While the prisoners were taking their daily walk in the courtyard a stone was thrown over the outer wall and fell at their feet. Morgan, who still retained in relation to his comrades the position of leader, picked it up, opened the letter which inclosed the stone, and read it. Then, turning to his friends, he said: “Gentlemen, the appeal has been rejected, as we might have expected, and the ceremony will take place in all probability tomorrow.”
Valensolle and Ribier, who were playing a species of quoits with crown-pieces and louis, left off their game to hear the news. Having heard it they returned to their game without remark.
Jayat, who was reading “La Nouvelle Héloise,” resumed his book, saying: “Then, I shall not have time to finish M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s masterpiece, and upon my word I don’t regret it, for it is the most utterly false and wearisome book I ever read in my life!”
Sainte-Hermine passed his hand over his forehead, murmuring: “Poor Amélie!” Then observing Charlotte, who was at the window of the jailer’s room overlooking the courtyard, he went to her. “Tell Amélie that she must keep the promise she made me, tonight.”
The jailer’s daughter closed the window, kissed her father, and told him that in all probability he would see her there again that evening. Then she returned to Noires-Fontaines, a road she had taken twice every day for the last two months, once at noon on her way to the prison, once in the evening on returning to the château.
Every night she found Amélie in the same place, sitting at the window which, in happier days, had given admittance to her beloved Charles. Since the day she had fainted in the courtroom she had shed no tears, and, we may almost add, had uttered no word. Unlike the marble of antiquity awakening into life, she might have been compared to a living woman petrifying into stone. Every day she grew paler.
Charlotte watched her with astonishment. Common minds, always impressed by noisy demonstrations, that is to say, by cries and tears, are unable to understand a mute sorrow. Dumbness to them means indifference. She was therefore astonished at the calmness with which Amélie received the message she was charged to deliver. She did not see in the dimness of the twilight that Amélie’s face from being pale grew livid. She did not feel the deadly clutch which, like an iron wrench, had seized her heart. She did not know that as her mistress walked to the door an automatic stiffness was in her limbs. Nevertheless she followed her anxiously. But at the door Amélie stretched out her hand.
“Wait for me there,” she said.
Charlotte obeyed. Amélie closed the door behind her, and went up to Roland’s room.
Roland’s room was veritably that of a soldier and a huntsman, and its chief adornments were trophies and weapons. Arms of all kinds were here, French and foreign, from the blue-barrelled pistol of Versailles to the silver-handled pistol of Cairo, from the tempered blade of Catalonia to the Turkish cimeter.
Amélie took down from this arsenal four daggers, sharp-edged and pointed, and eight
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