Within an Inch of His Life

E >> Emile Gaboriau >> Within an Inch of His Life


"Instead of that, there is the door to the galleys. Henceforth"--

A sob cut short his words. His strength was exhausted; for if there are,
so to say, no limits to the power of endurance of the spirit, the energy
of the body has its bounds. Refusing the arm which the sergeant offered
him, he rushed out of the room.

M. Magloire was well-nigh beside himself with grief.

"Ah! why could we not save him?" he said to his young colleague. "Let
them come and speak to me again of the power of conviction. But we must
not stay here: let us go!"

They threw themselves into the crowd, which was slowly dispersing, all
palpitating yet with the excitement of the day.

A strange reaction was already beginning to set in,--a reaction
perfectly illogic, and yet intelligible, and by no means rare under
similar circumstances.

Jacques de Boiscoran, an object of general execration as long as he
was only suspected, regained the sympathy of all the moment he was
condemned. It was as if the fatal sentence had wiped out the horror of
the crime. He was pitied; his fate was deplored; and as they thought
of his family, his mother, and his betrothed, they almost cursed the
severity of the judges.

Besides, even the least observant among those present had been struck by
the singular course which the proceedings had taken. There was not
one, probably, in that vast assembly who did not feel that there was
a mysterious and unexplored side of the case, which neither the
prosecution nor the defence had chosen to approach. Why had Cocoleu been
mentioned only once, and then quite incidentally? He was an idiot, to be
sure; but it was nevertheless through his evidence alone that suspicions
had been aroused against M. de Boiscoran. Why had he not been summoned
either by the prosecution or by the defence?

The evidence given by Count Claudieuse, also, although apparently so
conclusive at the moment, was now severely criticised.

The most indulgent said,--

"That was not well done. That was a trick. Why did he not speak out
before? People do not wait for a man to be down before they strike him."

Others added,--

"And did you notice how M. de Boiscoran and Count Claudieuse looked at
each other? Did you hear what they said to each other? One might have
sworn that there was something else, something very different from a
mere lawsuit, between them."

And on all sides people repeated,--

"At all events, M. Folgat is right. The whole matter is far from
being cleared up. The jury was long before they agreed. Perhaps M.
de Boiscoran would have been acquitted, if, at the last moment, M.
Gransiere had not announced the impending death of Count Claudieuse in
the adjoining room."

M. Magloire and M. Folgat listened to all these remarks, as they heard
them in the crowd here and there, with great satisfaction; for in spite
of all the assertions of magistrates and judges, in spite of all the
thundering condemnations against the practice, public opinion will find
an echo in the court-room; and, more frequently than we think, public
opinion does dictate the verdict of the jury.

"And now," said M. Magloire to his young colleague, "now we can be
content. I know Sauveterre by heart. I tell you public opinion is
henceforth on our side."

By dint of perseverance they made their way, at last, out through the
narrow door of the court-room, when one of the ushers stopped them.

"They wish to see you," said the man.

"Who?"

"The family of the prisoner. Poor people! They are all in there, in
M. Mechinet's office. M. Daubigeon told me to keep it for them. The
Marchioness de Boiscoran also was carried there when she was taken ill
in the court-room."

He accompanied the two gentlemen, while telling them this, to the end of
the hall; then he opened a door, and said,--

"They are in there," and withdrew discreetly.

There, in an easy-chair, with closed eyes, and half-open lips, lay
Jacques's mother. Her livid pallor and her stiff limbs made her look
like a dead person; but, from time to time, spasms shook her whole body,
from head to foot. M. de Chandore stood on one side, and the marquis,
her husband, on the other, watching her with mournful eyes and in
perfect silence. They had been thunderstruck; and, from the moment when
the fatal sentence fell upon their ears, neither of them had uttered a
word.

Dionysia alone seemed to have preserved the faculty of reasoning and
moving. But her face was deep purple; her dry eyes shone with a painful
light; and her body shook as with fever. As soon as the two advocates
appeared, she cried,--

"And you call this human justice?"

And, as they were silent, she added,---

"Here is Jacques condemned to penal labor; that is to say, he is
judicially dishonored, lost, disgraced, forever cut off from human
society. He is innocent; but that does not matter. His best friends
will know him no longer: no hand will touch his hand hereafter; and
even those who were most proud of his affection will pretend to have
forgotten his name."

"I understand your grief but too well, madam," said M. Magloire.

"My grief is not as great as my indignation," she broke in. "Jacques
must be avenged, and he shall be avenged! I am only twenty, and he is
not thirty yet: there is a whole life before us which we can devote to
the work of his rehabilitation; for I do not mean to abandon him. I!
His undeserved misfortunes make him a thousand times dearer to me, and
almost sacred. I was his betrothed this morning: this evening I am his
wife. His condemnation was our nuptial benediction. And if it is true,
as grandpapa says, that the law prohibits a prisoner to marry the woman
he loves, well, I will be his without marriage."

Dionysia spoke all this aloud, so loud that it seemed she wanted all the
earth to hear what she was saying.

"Ah! let me reassure you by a single word, madam," said M. Folgat. "We
have not yet come to that. The sentence is not final."

The Marquis de Boiscoran and M. de Chandore started.

"What do you mean?"

"An oversight which M. Galpin has committed makes the whole proceeding
null and void. You will ask how a man of his character, so painstaking
and so formal, should have made such a blunder. Probably because he was
blinded by passion. Why had nobody noticed this oversight? Because fate
owed us this compensation. There can be no question about the matter.
The defect is a defect of form; and the law provides expressly for the
case. The sentence must be declared void, and we shall have another
trial."

"And you never told us anything of that?" asked Dionysia.

"We hardly dared to think of it," replied M. Magloire. "It was one of
those secrets which we dare not confide to our own pillow. Remember,
that, in the course of the proceedings, the error might have been
corrected at any time. Now it is too late. We have time before us;
and the conduct of Count Claudieuse relieves us from all restraint of
delicacy. The veil shall be torn now."

The door opened violently, interrupting his words. Dr. Seignebos
entered, red with anger, and darting fiery glances from under his gold
spectacles.

"Count Claudieuse?" M. Folgat asked eagerly.

"Is next door," replied the doctor. "They have had him down on a
mattress, and his wife is by his side. What a profession ours is! Here
is a man, a wretch, whom I should be most happy to strangle with my own
hands; and I am compelled to do all I can to recall him to life: I
must lavish my attentions upon him, and seek every means to relieve his
sufferings."

"Is he any better?"

"Not at all! Unless a special miracle should be performed in his behalf,
he will leave the court-house only feet forward, and that in twenty-four
hours. I have not concealed it from the countess; and I have told her,
that, if she wishes her husband to die in peace with Heaven, she has but
just time to send for a priest."

"And has she sent for one?"

"Not at all! She told me her husband would be terrified by the
appearance of a priest, and that would hasten his end. Even when
the good priest from Brechy came of his own accord, she sent him off
unceremoniously."

"Ah the miserable woman!" cried Dionysia.

And, after a moment's reflection, she added,--

"And yet that may be our salvation. Yes, certainly. Why should I
hesitate? Wait for me here: I am coming back."

She hurried out. Her grandpapa was about to follow her; but M. Folgat
stopped him.

"Let her do it," he said,--"let her do it!"

It had just struck ten o'clock. The court-house, just now as full and as
noisy as a bee-hive, was silent and deserted. In the immense hall, badly
lighted by a smoking lamp, there were only two men to be seen. One was
the priest from Brechy, who was praying on his knees close to a door;
and the other was the watchman, who was slowly walking up and down, and
whose steps resounded there as in a church.

Dionysia went straight up to the latter.

"Where is Count Claudieuse?" she asked.

"There, madam," replied the man, pointing at the door before which the
priest was praying,--"there, in the private office of the commonwealth
attorney."

"Who is with him?"

"His wife, madam, and a servant."

"Well, go in and tell the Countess Claudieuse,--but so that her
husband does not hear you,--that Miss Chandore desires to see her a few
moments."

The watchman made no objection, and went in. But, when he came back, he
said to the young girl,--

"Madam, the countess sends word that she cannot leave her husband, who
is very low."

She stopped him by an impatient gesture, and said,--

"Never mind! Go back and tell the countess, that, if she does not come
out, I shall go in this moment; that, if it must be, I shall force my
way in; that I shall call for help; that nothing will keep me. I must
absolutely see her."

"But, madam"--

"Go! Don't you see that it is a question of life and death?"

There was such authority in her voice, that the watchman no longer
hesitated. He went in once more, and reappeared a moment after.

"Go in," he said to the young girl.

She went in, and found herself in a little anteroom which preceded the
office of the commonwealth attorney. A large lamp illuminated the room.
The door leading to the room in which the count was lying was closed.

In the centre of the room stood the Countess Claudieuse. All these
successive blows had not broken her indomitable energy. She looked pale,
but calm.

"Since you insist upon it, madam," she began, "I come to tell you
myself that I cannot listen to you. Are you not aware that I am standing
between two open graves,--that of my poor girl, who is dying at my
house, and that of my husband, who is breathing his last in there?"

She made a motion as if she were about to retire; but Dionysia stopped
her by a threatening look, and said with a trembling voice,--

"If you go back into that room where your husband is, I shall go back
with you, and I shall speak before him. I shall ask you right before
him, how you dare order a priest away from his bedside at the moment
of death, and whether, after having robbed him of all his happiness in
life, you mean to make him unhappy in all eternity."

Instinctively the countess drew back.

"I do not understand you," she said.

"Yes, you do understand me, madam. Why will you deny it? Do you not see
that I know every thing, and that I have guessed what you have not told
me? Jacques was your lover; and your husband has had his revenge."

"Ah!" cried the countess, "that is too much; that is too much!"

"And you have permitted it," Dionysia went on with breathless haste;
"and you did not come, and cry out in open court that your husband was
a false witness! What a woman you must be! You do not mind it, that your
love carries a poor unfortunate man to the galleys. You mean to live on
with this thought in your heart, that the man whom you love is innocent,
and nevertheless, disgraced forever, and cut off from human society. A
priest might induce the count to retract his statement, you know very
well; and hence you refuse to let the priest from Brechy come to his
bedside. And what is the end and aim of all your crimes? To save your
false reputation as an honest woman. Ah! that is miserable; that is
mean; that is infamous!"

The countess was roused at last. What all M. Folgat's skill and ability
had not been able to accomplish, Dionysia obtained in an instant by the
force of her passion. Throwing aside her mask, the countess exclaimed
with a perfect burst of rage,--

"Well, then, no, no! I have not acted so, and permitted all this to
happen, because I care for my reputation. My reputation!--what does it
matter? It was only a week ago, when Jacques had succeeded in escaping
from prison, I offered to flee with him. He had only to say a word, and
I should have given up my family, my children, my country, every thing,
for him. He answered, 'Rather the galleys!'"

In the midst of all her fearful sufferings, Dionysia's heart filled with
unspeakable happiness as she heard these words. Ah! now she could no
longer doubt Jacques.

"He has condemned himself, you see," continued the countess. "I was
quite willing to ruin myself for him, but certainly not for another
woman."

"And that other woman--no doubt you mean me!"

"Yes!--you for whose sake he abandoned me,--you whom he was going
to marry,--you with whom he hoped to enjoy long happy years, and a
happiness not furtive and sinful like ours, but a legitimate, honest
happiness."

Tears were trembling in Dionysia's eyes. She was beloved: she thought of
what she must suffer who was not beloved.

"And yet I should have been generous," she murmured. The countess broke
out into a fierce, savage laugh.

"And the proof of it is," said the young girl, "that I came to offer you
a bargain."

"A bargain?"

"Yes. Save Jacques, and, by all that is sacred to me in the world, I
promise I will enter a convent: I will disappear, and you shall never
hear my name any more."

Intense astonishment seized the countess, and she looked at Dionysia
with a glance full of doubt and mistrust. Such devotion seemed to her
too sublime not to conceal some snare.

"You would really do that?" she asked.

"Unhesitatingly."

"You would make a great sacrifice for my benefit?"

"For yours? No, madam, for Jacques's."

"You love him very dearly, do you?"

"I love him dearly enough to prefer his happiness to my own a thousand
times over. Even if I were buried in the depths of a convent, I should
still have the consolation of knowing that he owed his rehabilitation to
me; and I should suffer less in knowing that he belonged to another than
that he was innocent, and yet condemned."

But, in proportion as the young girl thus confirmed her sincerity,
the brow of the countess grew darker and sterner, and passing blushes
mantled her cheek. At last she said with haughty irony,--

"Admirable!"

"Madam!"

"You condescend to give up M. de Boiscoran. Will that make him love
me? You know very well he will not. You know that he loves you alone.
Heroism with such conditions is easy enough. What have you to fear?
Buried in a convent, he will love you only all the more ardently, and he
will execrate me all the more fervently."

"He shall never know any thing of our bargain!"

"Ah! What does that matter? He will guess it, if you do not tell him.
No: I know what awaits me. I have felt it now for two years,--this agony
of seeing him becoming daily more detached from me. What have I not done
to keep him near me! How I have stooped to meanness, to falsehood,
to keep him a single day longer, perhaps a single hour! But all was
useless. I was a burden to him. He loved me no longer; and my love
became to him a heavier load than the cannon-ball which they will fasten
to his chains at the galleys."

Dionysia shuddered.

"That is horrible!" she murmured.

"Horrible! Yes, but true. You look amazed. That is because you have as
yet only seen the morning dawn of your love: wait for the dark evening,
and you will understand me. Is not the story of all of us women the
same! I have seen Jacques at my feet as you see him at yours: the vows
he swears to you, he once swore to me; and he swore them to me with the
same voice, tremulous with passion, and with the same burning glances.
But you think you will be his wife, and I never was. What does that
matter? What does he tell you? That he will love you forever, because
his love is under the protection of God and of men. He told me,
precisely because our love was not thus protected, that we should be
united by indissoluble bonds,--bonds stronger than all others. You have
his promise: so had I. And the proof of it is that I gave him every
thing,--my honor and the honor of my family, and that I would have
given him still more, if there had been any more to give. And now to be
betrayed, forsaken, despised, to sink lower and lower, until at last
I must become the object of your pity! To have fallen so low, that you
should dare come and offer me to give up Jacques for my benefit! Ah,
that is maddening! And I should let the vengeance I hold in my hands
slip from me at your bidding! I should be stupid enough, blind enough,
to allow myself to be touched by your hypocritical tears! I should
secure your happiness by the sacrifice of my reputation! No, madam,
cherish no such hope!"

Her voice expired in her throat in a kind of toneless rattle. She walked
up and down a few times in the room. Then she placed herself straight
before Dionysia, and, looking fixedly into her eyes, she asked,--

"Who suggested to you this plan of coming here, this supreme insult
which you tried to inflict upon me?"

Dionysia was seized with unspeakable horror, and hardly found heart to
reply.

"No one," she murmured.

"M. Folgat?"

"Knows nothing of it."

"And Jacques?"

"I have not seen him. The thought occurred to me quite suddenly, like an
inspiration on high. When Dr. Seignebos told me that you had refused
to admit the priest from Brechy, I said to myself, 'This is the last
misfortune, and the greatest of them all! If Count Claudieuse dies
without retracting, Jacques can never be fully restored, whatever may
happen hereafter, not even if his innocence should be established.' Then
I made up my mind to come to you. Ah! it was a hard task. But I was
in hopes I might touch your heart, or that you might be moved by the
greatness of my sacrifice."

The countess was really moved. There is no heart absolutely bad, as
there is none altogether good. As she listened to Dionysia's passionate
entreaty, her resolution began to grow weaker.

"Would it be such a great sacrifice?" she asked.

Tears sprang to the eyes of the poor young girl.

"Alas!" she said, "I offer you my life. I know very well you will not be
long jealous of me."

She was interrupted by groans, which seemed to come from the room in
which the count was lying.

The countess half-opened the door; and immediately a feeble, and yet
imperious voice was heard calling out,--

"Genevieve, I say, Genevieve!"

"I am coming, my dear, in a moment," replied the countess.

"What security can you give me," she said, in a hard and stern voice,
after having closed the door again,--"what security do you give me, that
if Jacques's innocence were established, and he reinstated, you would
not forget your promises?"

"Ah, madam! How or upon what do you want me to swear that I am ready
to disappear. Choose your own securities, and I will do whatever you
require."

Then, sinking down on her knees, before the countess, she went on,--

"Here I am at your feet, madam, humble and suppliant,--I whom you accuse
of a desire to insult you. Have pity on Jacques! Ah! if you loved him as
much as I do, you would not hesitate."

The countess raised her suddenly and quickly, and holding her hands in
her own, looked at her for more than a minute without saying a word,
but with heaving bosom and trembling lips. At last she asked in a voice
which was so deeply affected, that it was hardly intelligible.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Induce Count Claudieuse to retract."

The countess shook her head.

"It would be useless to try. You do not know the count. He is a man of
iron. You might tear his flesh inch by inch with hot iron pincers, and
he would not take back one of his words. You cannot conceive what he
has suffered, nor the depth of the hatred, the rage, and the thirst of
vengeance, which have accumulated in his heart. It was to torture me
that he brought me here to his bedside. Only five minutes ago he told me
that he died content, since Jacques was declared guilty, and condemned
through his evidence."

She was conquered: her energy was exhausted, and tears came to her eyes.

"He has been so cruelly tried!" she went on. "He loved me to
distraction; he loved nothing in the world but me. And I--Ah, if we
could know, if we could foresee! No, I shall never be able to induce him
to retract."

Dionysia almost forgot her own great grief.

"Nor do I expect you to obtain that favor," she said very gently.

"Who, then?"

"The priest from Brechy. He will surely find words to shake even the
firmest resolution. He can speak in the name of that God, who, even on
the cross, forgave those who crucified Him."

One moment longer the countess hesitated; and then, overcoming finally
the last rebellious impulses of her pride, she said,--

"Well, I will call the priest."

"And I, madam, I swear I will keep my promise."

But the countess stopped her, and said, making a supreme effort over
herself,--

"No: I shall try to save Jacques without making conditions. Let him be
yours. He loves you, and you were ready to sacrifice your life for his
sake. He forsakes me; but I sacrifice my honor to him. Farewell!"

And hastening to the door, while Dionysia returned to her friends, she
summoned the priest from Brechy.



II.

M. Daubigeon, the commonwealth attorney, learned that morning from his
chief clerk what had happened, and how the proceedings in the Boiscoran
case were necessarily null and void on account of a fatal error in form.
The counsel of the defence had lost no time, and, after spending the
whole night in consultation, had early that morning presented their
application for a new trial to the court.

The commonwealth attorney took no pains to conceal his satisfaction.

"Now," he cried, "this will worry my friend Galpin, and clip his wings
considerably; and yet I had called his attention to the lines of Horace,
in which he speaks of Phaeton's sad fate, and says,--

'Terret ambustus Phaeton avaras Spes.'

But he would not listen to me, forgetting, that, without prudence, force
is a danger. And there he is now, in great difficulty, I am sure."

And at once he made haste to dress, and to go and see M. Galpin in
order to hear all the details accurately, as he told his clerk, but, in
reality, in order to enjoy to his heart's content the discomfiture of
the ambitious magistrate.

He found him furious, and ready to tear his hair.

"I am disgraced," he repeated: "I am ruined; I am lost. All my
prospects, all my hopes, are gone. I shall never be forgiven for such an
oversight."

To look at M. Daubigeon, you would have thought he was sincerely
distressed.

"Is it really true," he said with an air of assumed pity,--"is it really
true, what they tell me, that this unlucky mistake was made by you?"

"By me? Yes, indeed! I forgot those wretched details which a scholar
knows by heart. Can you understand that? And to say that no one noticed
my inconceivable blindness! Neither the first court of inquiry, nor
the attorney-general himself, nor the presiding judge, ever said a word
about it. It is my fate. And that is to be the result of my labors.
Everybody, no doubt, said, 'Oh! M. Galpin has the case in hand; he knows
all about it: no need to look after the matter when such a man has taken
hold of it.' And here I am. Oh! I might kill myself."

"It is all the more fortunate," replied M. Daubigeon, "that yesterday
the case was hanging on a thread."

The magistrate gnashed his teeth, and replied,--

"Yes, on a thread, thanks to M. Domini! whose weakness I cannot
comprehend, and who did not know at all, or who was not willing to know,
how to make the most of the evidence. But it was M. Gransiere's fault
quite as much. What had he to do with politics to drag them into the
affair? And whom did he want to hit? No one else but M. Magloire, the
man whom everybody respects in the whole district, and who had three
warm personal friends among the jurymen. I foresaw it, and I told him
where he would get into trouble. But there are people who will not
listen. M. Gransiere wants to be elected himself. It is a fancy, a
monomania of our day: everybody wants to be a deputy. I wish Heaven
would confound all ambitious men!"

For the first time in his life, and no doubt for the last time also,
the commonwealth attorney rejoiced at the misfortune of others. Taking
savage pleasure in turning the dagger in his poor friend's wounds, he
said,--

"No doubt M. Folgat's speech had something to do with it."

"Nothing at all."

"He was brilliantly successful."

"He took them by surprise. It was nothing but a big voice, and grand,
rolling sentences."