Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 55

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Witness 391]

"Bouvet de Lozier!" cried the other prisoners, with a shout wild as madness itself, while every man sprang forward to look at him. But already his head had fallen back over the chair, the limbs stretched out rigidly, and the arm fell heavily down.

"He is dying!" "He is dead!" were the exclamations of the crowd, and a general cry for a doctor was heard around. Several physicians were soon at his side, and by the aid of restoratives he was gradually brought back to animation; but cold and speechless he lay, unable to understand anything, and was obliged to be conveyed back again to his bed.

It was some time before the excitement of this harrowing scene was over; and when order at length was restored in the court, George Cadoudal was seen seated, as at first, on the bench, while around him his faithful followers were grouped. Like children round a beloved father, some leaned on his neck, others clasped his knees; some covered his hands with kisses, and called him by the most endearing names. But though he moved his head from, side to side, and tried to smile upon them, a cold vacancy was in his face; his lips were parted, and his eyes stared wildly before him; his very hair stood out from his forehead, on which the big drops of sweat were seen.

"Father; dear father, it is but one who is false; see, look how many of your children are true to you! Think on us who are with you here, and will go with you to death without shrinking."

"He is but a child, too, father; and they have stolen away his reason from him," said another.

"Yes, they have brought him to this by suffering," cried a third, as with a clenched hand he menaced the bench, where sat the judges.

"Order in the court!" cried the President. But the command was reiterated again and again before silence could be obtained; and when again I could observe the proceedings, I saw the Procureur-Gnral addressing the tribunal, to demand a postponement in consequence of the illness of the last witness, whose testimony was p.r.o.nounced all-conclusive.

A discussion took place on the subject between the counsel for the prisoners and the prosecution; and at length it was ruled that this trial should not be proceeded with till the following morning.

"We are, however, prepared to go on with the other cases," said the Procureur, "if the court will permit."

"Certainly," said the President.

"In that case," continued the Procureur, "we shall call on the accused Thomas Burke, lieutenant of the huitieme hussars, now present."

For some minutes nothing more could be heard, for the crowded galleries, thronged with expectant hundreds, began now to empty. Mine was a name without interest for any; and the thronged ma.s.ses rose to depart, while their over-excited minds found vent in words which, drowned all else. It was in vain silence and order were proclaimed; the proceedings had lost all interest, and with it all respect, and for full ten minutes the uproar lasted. Meanwhile, M. Baillot, taking his place by my side, produced some most voluminous papers, in which he soon became deeply engaged. I turned one look throughout the now almost deserted seats, but not one face there was known to me. The few who remained seemed to stay rather from indolence than any other motive, as they lounged over the vacant benches and yawned listlessly; and much as I dreaded the gaze of that appalling mult.i.tude, I sickened at the miserable isolation of my lot, and felt overwhelmed to think that for me there was not one who should pity or regret my fall.

At last order was established in the court, and the Procureur opened the proceeding by reciting the act of my accusation, in which all the circ.u.mstances already mentioned by my advocate were dwelt and commented on with the habitual force and exaggeration of bar oratory. The address was short, however,--scarcely fifteen minutes long; and by the tone of the speaker, and the manner of the judges, I guessed that my case excited little or no interest to the prosecution, either from my own humble and insignificant position, or the certainty they felt of my conviction.

My advocate rose to demand a delay, even a short one, pleading most energetically against the precipitancy of a proceeding in which the indictment was but made known the day previous. The President interrupted him roughly, and with an a.s.surance that no circ.u.mstance short of the necessity to produce some important evidence not then forthcoming, would induce him to grant a postponement.

M. Baillot replied at once, "Such, sir, is our case; a witness, whose evidence is of the highest moment, is not to be found; a day or two might enable us to obtain his testimony. It is upon this we ground our hope, our certainty, of an acquittal. The court will not, I am certain, refuse its clemency in such an emergency as this."

"Where is this same witness to be found? Is he in Paris? Is he in France?"

"We hope in Paris, Monsieur le President."

"And his name?"

"The Abb d'Ervan."

A strange murmur ran along the bench of judges at the words; and I could see that some of them smiled in spite of their efforts to seem grave, while the Procureur-Gnral did not scruple to laugh outright.

"I believe, sir," said he, addressing the President, "that I can accommodate my learned brother with this so-much desired testimony perhaps more speedily, I will not say than he wishes, but than he expects."

"How is this?" said my advocate, in a whisper to me. "They have this Abb then. Has he turned against his party?"

"I know nothing of him," said I, recklessly; "falsehood and treachery seem so rife here, that it can well be as you say."

"The Abbe d'Ervan!" cried a loud voice; and with the words the well-known figure moved rapidly from the crowd and mounted the steps of the platform.

"You are lost!" said Baillot, in a low, solemn voice; "it is Mehe de la Touche himself!"

Had the words of my sentence rung in my ears I had not felt them more, that name, by some secret spell, had such terror in it.

"You know the prisoner before you, sir?" said the President, turning towards the Abb.

Before he could reply, my advocate broke in:--

"Pardon me, sir; but previous to the examination of this respectable witness, I would ask under what name he is to figure in this process?

Is he here the Abb d'Ervan, the agreeable and gifted frequenter of the Faubourg St. Germain?--is he the Chevalier Maupret, the companion and a.s.sociate of the house of Bourbon?--or is he the no less celebrated and esteemed citizen Meh e de la Touche, whose active exertions have been of such value in these eventful times that we should think no recompense sufficient for them had he not been paid by both parties? Yes, sir,"

continued he, in an altered tone, "I repeat it: we are prepared to show that this man is unworthy of all credit; that he whose testimony the court now calls is a hired spy and bribed calumniator,--the instigator to the treason he prosecutes, the designer of the schemes for which other men's blood has paid the penalty. Is this abb without, and gendarme within, to be at large in the world, ensnaring the unsuspecting youth of France by subtle and insidious doctrines disguised under the semblance of after-dinner gayety? Are we to feel that on such evidence as this, the fame, the honor, the life of every man is to rest?--he, who earns his livelihood by treason, and whose wealth is gathered in the b.l.o.o.d.y sawdust beneath the guillotine!"

"We shall not hear these observations longer," said the President, with an accent of severity. "You may comment on the evidence of the witness hereafter, and, if you are able to do so, disprove it. His character is under the protection of the court."

"No, sir!" said the advocate, with energy; "no court, however high,--no tribunal, beneath that of Heaven itself, whose decrees we dare not question,--can throw a shield over a man like this. There are crimes which stain the nation they occur in; which, happening in our age, make men sorry for their generation, and wish they had lived in other times."

"Once more, sir, I command you to desist!" interrupted the President.

"If I dare to dictate to the honorable court?" said the so-called Abb, in an accent of the most honeyed sweetness, and with a smile of the most winning expression, "I would ask permission for the learned gentleman to proceed. These well-arranged paragraphs, this indignation got by heart, must have vent, since they 're paid for; and it would save the tribunal the time which must be consumed in listening to them hereafter."

"If," said the advocate, "the coolness and indifference to blood which the headsman exhibits, be a proof of guilt in the victim before him, I could congratulate the prosecution on their witness. But," cried he, in an accent of wild excitement, "great Heavens! are we again fallen on such times as to need atrocity like this? Is the terrible ordeal of blood through which we have pa.s.sed to be renewed once more? Is the accusation to be h.o.a.rded, the calumnious evidence secreted, the charge held back, till the scaffold is ready,--and then the indictment, the slander, the sentence, and the death, to follow on one another like the flash and the thunder? Is the very imputation of having heard from a Bourbon to bear its prestige of sudden death?"

"Silence, sir!" cried the President, to whom the allusion to the Duc d'Enghien was peculiarly offensive, and who saw in the looks of the spectators with what force it told. "You know the prisoner?" said he, turning towards D'Ervan.

"I have that honor, sir," said he, with a bland smile.

"State to the court the place and the occasion of your first meeting him."

"If I remember correctly, it was in the Palais Royal, at Beauvilliers's.

There was a meeting of some of the _Chouan_ party arranged for that evening, but from some accident only three or four were present. The sous-lieutenant, however, was one."

"Repeat, as far as your memory serves you, the conduct and conversation of the prisoner during the evening in question."

In reply, the Abb, recapitulated every minute particular of the supper; scarcely an observation the most trivial he did not recall, and apply, by some infernal ingenuity, to the scheme of the conspiracy. Although never, even in the slightest instance, falsifying any speech, he tortured the few words I did say into such a semblance of criminality that I started, as I heard the interpretation which now appeared so naturally to attach to them. (During all this time my advocate never interrupted him once, but occupied himself in writing as rapidly as he could follow the evidence.) The chance expression which concluded the evening,--the hope of meeting soon,--was artfully construed into an arranged and recognized agreement that I had accepted companionship amongst them, and formally joined their ranks.

From this he pa.s.sed on to the second charge,--respecting the conversation I had overheard at the Tuileries, and which I so unhappily repeated to Beauvais. This the Abb, dwelt upon with great minuteness, as evidencing my being an accomplice; showing how I had exhibited great zeal in the new cause I had embarked in, and affecting to mark how very highly the service was rated by those in whose power lay the rewards of such an achievement.

Then followed the account of my appointment at Versailles, in which I heard, with a sinking heart, how thoroughly even there the toils were spread around me. It appeared that the reason of the neglect I then experienced was an order from the minister that I should not be noticed in any way; that the object of my being placed there was to test my fidelity, which already was suspected; that it was supposed such neglect might naturally have the effect of throwing me more willingly into the views of the conspirators, and, as I was watched in every minute particular, of establishing my own guilt and leading to the detection of others.

Then came a narrative of his visits to my quarters, in which the omission of all mention of his name in my report was clearly shown as an evidence of my conscious culpability. And, to my horror and confusion, a new witness was produced,--the sentinel, Pierre Dulong, who mounted guard at the gate of the chteau on the morning when I pa.s.sed the Abb, through the park.

With an accuracy beyond my belief, he repeated all out conversations, making the dubious hints and dark suggestions which he himself threw out as much mine as his own; and having at length given a full picture of my treacherous conduct, he introduced my intimacy with Beauvais as the crowning circ.u.mstance of my guilt.

"I shall pause here," said he, with a cool malignity, but ill concealed beneath a look of affected sorrow--"I shall pause here, and, with the permission of the court, allow the accused to make, if he will, a full confession of his criminality; or, if he refuse this, I shall proceed to the disclosure of other circ.u.mstances, by which it will be seen that these dark designs met favor and countenance in higher quarters; and among those, too, whose s.e.x, if nothing else, should have removed them beyond the contamination of confederacy with a.s.sa.s.sination."

"The court," said the President, sternly, "will enter into no compromise of this kind. You are here to give such evidence as you possess, fully, frankly, and without reserve; nor can we permit you to hold out any promises to the prisoner that his confession of guilt can afford a screen to the culpability of others."

"I demand," cried the Procureur-Gnral, "a full disclosure from the witness of everything he knows concerning this conspiracy."

"In that case I shall speak," said the Abb.