第 62 页

save us!"

"I know," replied Massot scoffingly. "I've even been told that if

everything was settled straight off so that the decrees might be

published this morning, it was in order to instil confidence into the

judges and jurymen here, in such wise that knowing Monferrand's fist to

be behind them they would have the courage to pronounce sentence of death

this evening."

"Well, public safety requires a sentence of death, and those who have to

ensure that safety must not be left ignorant of the fact that the

government is with them, and will know how to protect them, if need be."

At this moment a merry laugh from the Princess broke in upon the

conversation. "Oh! just look over there!" said she; "isn't that Silviane

who has just sat down beside Monsieur Fonsegue?"

"The Silviane ministry!" muttered Massot in a jesting way. "Well, there

will be no boredom at Dauvergne's if he ingratiates himself with

actresses."

Guillaume and Pierre heard this chatter, however little they cared to

listen to it. Such a deluge of society tittle-tattle and political

indiscretion brought the former a keen heart-pang. So Salvat was

sentenced to death even before he had appeared in court. He was to pay

for the transgressions of one and all, his crime was simply a favourable

opportunity for the triumph of a band of ambitious people bent on power

and enjoyment! Ah! what terrible social rottenness there was in it all;

money corrupting one and another, families sinking to filth, politics

turned into a mere treacherous struggle between individuals, and power

becoming the prey of the crafty and the impudent! Must not everything

surely crumble? Was not this solemn assize of human justice a derisive

parody, since all that one found there was an assembly of happy and

privileged people defending the shaky edifice which sheltered them, and

making use of all the forces they yet retained, to crush a fly--that

unhappy devil of uncertain sanity who had been led to that court by his

violent and cloudy dream of another, superior and avenging justice?

Such were Guillaume's thoughts, when all at once everybody around him

started. Noon was now striking, and the jurymen trooped into court in

straggling fashion and took their seats in their box. Among them one saw

fat fellows clad in their Sunday best and with the faces of simpletons,

and thin fellows who had bright eyes and sly expressions. Some of them

were bearded and some were bald. However, they all remained rather

indistinct, as their side of the court was steeped in shade. After them

came the judges, headed by M. de Larombiere, one of the Vice-Presidents

of the Appeal Court, who in assuming the perilous honour of conducting

the trial had sought to increase the majesty of his long, slender, white

face, which looked the more austere as both his assessors, one dark and

the other fair, had highly coloured countenances. The public prosecutor's

seat was already occupied by one of the most skilful of the

advocates-general, M. Lehmann, a broad-shouldered Alsatian Israelite,

with cunning eyes, whose presence showed that the case was deemed

exceptionally important. At last, amidst the heavy tread of gendarmes,

Salvat was brought in, at once rousing such ardent curiosity that all the

spectators rose to look at him. He still wore the cap and loose overcoat

procured for him by Victor Mathis, and everybody was surprised to see his

emaciated, sorrowful, gentle face, crowned by scanty reddish hair, which

was turning grey. His soft, glowing, dreamy blue eyes glanced around, and

he smiled at someone whom he recognised, probably Victor, but perhaps

Guillaume. After that he remained quite motionless.

The presiding judge waited for silence to fall, and then came the

formalities which attend the opening of a court of law, followed by the

perusal of the lengthy indictment, which a subordinate official read in a

shrill voice. The scene had now changed, and the spectators listened

wearily and somewhat impatiently, as, for weeks past, the newspapers had

related all that the indictment set forth. At present not a corner of the

court remained unoccupied, there was scarcely space enough for the

witnesses to stand in front of the bench. The closely packed throng was

one of divers hues, the light gowns of ladies alternating with the black

gowns of advocates, while the red robes of the judges disappeared from

view, the bench being so low that the presiding judge's long face

scarcely rose above the sea of heads. Many of those present became

interested in the jurors, and strove to scrutinise their shadowy

countenances. Others, who did not take their eyes off the prisoner,

marvelled at his apparent weariness and indifference, which were so great

that he scarcely answered the whispered questions of his counsel, a young

advocate with a wide-awake look, who was nervously awaiting the

opportunity to achieve fame. Most curiosity, however, centred in the

table set apart for the material evidence. Here were to be seen all sorts

of fragments, some of the woodwork torn away from the carriage-door of

the Duvillard mansion, some plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, a

paving-stone which the violence of the explosion had split in halves, and

other blackened remnants. The more moving sights, however, were the

milliner's bonnet-box, which had remained uninjured, and a glass jar in

which something white and vague was preserved in spirits of wine. This

was one of the poor errand girl's little hands, which had been severed at

the wrist. The authorities had been unable to place her poor ripped body

on the table, and so they had brought that hand!

At last Salvat rose, and the presiding judge began to interrogate him.

The contrast in the aspect of the court then acquired tragic force: in

the shrouding shade upon one hand were the jurors, their minds already

made up beneath the pressure of public terror, while in the full, vivid

light on the other side was the prisoner, alone and woeful, charged with

all the crimes of his race. Four gendarmes watched over him. He was

addressed by M. de Larombiere in a tone of contempt and disgust. The

judge was not deficient in rectitude; he was indeed one of the last

representatives of the old, scrupulous, upright French magistracy; but he

understood nothing of the new times, and he treated prisoners with the

severity of a Biblical Jehovah. Moreover, the infirmity which was the

worry of his life, the childish lisp which, in his opinion, had alone

prevented him from shining as a public prosecutor, made him ferociously

ill-tempered, incapable of any intelligent indulgence. There were smiles,

which he divined, as soon as he raised his sharp, shrill little voice, to

ask his first questions. That droll voice of his took away whatever

majesty might have remained attached to these proceedings, in which a

man's life was being fought for in a hall full of inquisitive, stifling

and perspiring folks, who fanned themselves and jested. Salvat answered

the judge's earlier questions with his wonted weariness and politeness.

While the judge did everything to vilify him, harshly reproaching him

with his wretched childhood and youth, magnifying every stain and every

transgression in his career, referring to the promiscuity of his life

between Madame Theodore and little Celine as something bestial, he, the

prisoner, quietly said yes or no, like a man who has nothing to hide and

accepts the full responsibility of his actions. He had already made a

complete confession of his crime, and he calmly repeated it without

changing a word. He explained that if he had deposited his bomb at the

entrance of the Duvillard mansion it was to give his deed its true

significance, that of summoning the wealthy, the money-mongers who had so

scandalously enriched themselves by dint of theft and falsehood, to

restore that part of the common wealth which they had appropriated, to

the poor, the working classes, their children and their wives, who

perished of starvation. It was only at this moment that he grew excited;

all the misery that he had endured or witnessed rose to his clouded,

semi-educated brain, in which claims and theories and exasperated ideas

of absolute justice and universal happiness had gathered confusedly. And

from that moment he appeared such as he really was, a sentimentalist, a

dreamer transported by suffering, proud and stubborn, and bent on

changing the world in accordance with his sectarian logic.

"But you fled!" cried the judge in a voice such as would have befitted a

grasshopper. "You must not say that you gave your life to your cause and

were ready for martyrdom!"

Salvat's most poignant regret was that he had yielded in the Bois de

Boulogne to the dismay and rage which come upon a tracked and hunted man

and impel him to do all he can to escape capture. And on being thus

taunted by the judge he became quite angry. "I don't fear death, you'll

see that," he replied. "If all had the same courage as I have, your

rotten society would be swept away to-morrow, and happiness would at last

dawn."

Then the interrogatory dealt at great length with the composition and

manufacture of the bomb. The judge, rightly enough, pointed out that this

was the only obscure point of the affair. "And so," he remarked, "you

persist in saying that dynamite was the explosive you employed? Well, you

will presently hear the experts, who, it is true, differ on certain

points, but are all of opinion that you employed some other explosive,

though they cannot say precisely what it was. Why not speak out on the

point, as you glory in saying everything?"

Salvat, however, had suddenly calmed down, giving only cautious

monosyllabic replies. "Well, seek for whatever you like if you don't

believe me," he now answered. "I made my bomb by myself, and under

circumstances which I've already related a score of times. You surely

don't expect me to reveal names and compromise comrades?"

From this declaration he would not depart. It was only towards the end of

the interrogatory that irresistible emotion overcame him on the judge

again referring to the unhappy victim of his crime, the little errand

girl, so pretty and fair and gentle, whom ferocious destiny had brought

to the spot to meet such an awful death. "It was one of your own class

whom you struck," said M. de Larombiere; "your victim was a work girl, a

poor child who, with the few pence she earned, helped to support her aged

grandmother."

Salvat's voice became very husky as he answered: "That's really the only

thing I regret.... My bomb certainly wasn't meant for her; and may all

the workers, all the starvelings, remember that she gave her blood as I'm

going to give mine!"

In this wise the interrogatory ended amidst profound agitation. Pierre

had felt Guillaume shuddering beside him, whilst the prisoner quietly and

obstinately refused to say a word respecting the explosive that had been

employed, preferring as he did to assume full responsibility for the deed

which was about to cost him his life. Moreover, Guillaume, on turning

round, in compliance with an irresistible impulse, had perceived Victor

Mathis still motionless behind him: his elbows ever leaning on the rail

of the partition, and his chin still resting on his hands, whilst he

listened with silent, concentrated passion. His face had become yet paler

than before, and his eyes glowed as with an avenging fire, whose flames

would never more be extinguished.

The interrogatory of the prisoner was followed by a brief commotion in

court.

"That Salvat looks quite nice, he has such soft eyes," declared the

Princess, whom the proceedings greatly amused. "Oh! don't speak ill of

him, my dear deputy. You know that I have Anarchist ideas myself."

"I speak no ill of him," gaily replied Duthil. "Nor has our friend

Amadieu any right to speak ill of him. For you know that this affair has

set Amadieu on a pinnacle. He was never before talked about to such an

extent as he is now; and he delights in being talked about, you know! He

has become quite a social celebrity, the most illustrious of our

investigating magistrates, and will soon be able to do or become whatever

he pleases."

Then Massot, with his sarcastic impudence, summed up the situation. "When

Anarchism flourishes, everything flourishes, eh? That bomb has helped on

the affairs of a good many fine fellows that I know. Do you think that my

governor Fonsegue, who's so attentive to Silviane yonder, complains of

it? And doesn't Sagnier, who's spreading himself out behind the presiding

judge, and whose proper place would be between the four

gendarmes--doesn't he owe a debt to Salvat for all the abominable

advertisements he has been able to give his paper by using the wretched

fellow's back as a big drum? And I need not mention the politicians or

the financiers or all those who fish in troubled waters."

"But I say," interrupted Duthil, "it seems to me that you yourself made

good use of the affair. Your interview with the little girl Celine

brought you in a pot of money."

Massot, as it happened, had been struck with the idea of ferreting out

Madame Theodore and the child, and of relating his visit to them in the

"Globe," with an abundance of curious and touching particulars. The

article had met with prodigious success, Celine's pretty answers

respecting her imprisoned father having such an effect on ladies with

sensitive hearts that they had driven to Montmartre in their carriages in

order to see the two poor creatures. Thus alms had come to them from all

sides; and strangely enough the very people who demanded the father's

head were the most eager to sympathise with the child.

"Well, I don't complain of my little profits," said the journalist in

answer to Duthil. "We all earn what we can, you know."