CHAPTER XXVI.
A SCENE IN A NORMAN COURT.
The court-room was brightly lighted; the yellow radiance on the white walls made the eyes blink. We had turned, following our guide, from the gloom of the dim streets into the roomy corridors of the Prefecture. Even the gardens about the building were swarming with townspeople and peasants waiting for the court to open. When we entered it was to find the hallways and stairs blocked with a struggling mass of people, all eager to get seats. A voice that was softened to a purring note, the voice that goes with the pursuit of the five franc piece, spoke to our landlady. "The seats to be reserved in the tribune were for these ladies?"
No time had been lost, you perceive. We were strangers; the courtesies of the town were to be extended to us. We were to have of their best, here in Coutances; and their best, just now, was this mise en scène in their court room.
The stage was well set. The Frenchman's instinctive sense of fitness was obvious in the arrangements. Long lines of blue drapery from the tall windows brought the groups below into high relief; the scarlet of the judges' robes was doubly impressive against this background. The lawyers, in their flowing black gowns and white ties, gained added dignity from the marine note behind them. The bluish pallor of the walls made the accused and the group about him pathetically sombre. Each one of this little group was in black. The accused himself, a sharp, shrewd, too keen-eyed man of thirty or so, might have been following a corpse—so black was his raiment. Even the youth beside him, a dull, sodden-eyed lad, with an air of being here not on his own account, but because he had been forced to come, was clad in deepest mourning. By the side of the culprit sat the one really tragic figure in all the court—the culprit's wife. She also was in black. In happier times she must have been a fair, fresh-colored blonde. Now all the color was gone from her cheek. She was as pale as death, and in her sweet downcast eyes there were the tell-tale vigils of long nights of weeping. Beside her sat an elderly man who bent over her, talking, whispering, commenting as the trial went on.
Every eye in the tribune was fixed on the slim young figure. A passing glance sufficed, as a rule, for the culprit and his accomplice; but it was on the wife that all the quick French sympathy, that volubly spoke itself out, was lavished. The blouses and peasants' caps, the tradesmen and their wives crowded close about the railing to pass their comment.
"She looks far more guilty than he," muttered a wizened old man next to us, very crooked on his three-legged stool.
"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her own curiosity. "Yes—she has her modesty—too—to speak for her—"
"Bah—all put on—to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the table d'hôte who had wedged his way toward us.
"And why not? A woman must make use of what weapons she has at hand—"
"Silence! Silence! messieurs!" The huissier brought down his staff of office with a ring. The clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of the tribune and the loud talking were disturbing the court.
This French court, as a court, sat in strange fashion, it seemed to us. The bench was on wonderfully friendly terms with the table about which the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the foreman of the jury, with even the huissiers. Monsieur le President was in his robes, but he wore them as negligently as he did the dignity of his office. He and the lawyer for the defence, a noted Coutances orator, openly wrangled; the latter, indeed, took little or no pains to show him respect; now they joked together, next a retort flashed forth which began a quarrel, and the court and the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery in the art of personal abuse. The lawyer made nothing of raising his finger, to shake it in open menace in the very teeth of the scarlet robes. And the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted angrily, like a fighting school-boy.
But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper way for a court to sit.
"Ah, D'Alençon—il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace toujours monsieur le président—"
"He'll win—he'll make a great speech—he is never really fine unless it's a question of life or death—" Such were the criticisms that were poured out from the quick-speaking lips about us.
Presently a simultaneous movement on the part of the jury brought the proceedings to confusion. A witness in the act of giving evidence stopped short in his sentence; he twisted his head; looking upward, he asked a question of the foreman, and the latter nodded, as if assenting. The judge then looked up. All the court looked up. All the heads were twisted. Something obviously was wrong. Then, presently the concierge appeared with a huge bunch of keys.
And all the court waited in perfect stillness while the windows were being closed!
"Il y avait un courant d'air—there was a draught,"—gravely announced the crooked man, as he rose to let the concierge pass. This latter had her views of a court so susceptible to whiffs of night air.
"Ces messieurs are delicate—pity they have to be out at night!"—whereat the tribune snickered.
All went on bravely for a good half-hour. More witnesses were called; each answered with wonderful aptness, ease, and clearness; none were confused or timid; these were not men to be the playthings of others who made tortuous cross-questionings their trade. They, also, were Frenchmen; they knew how to speak. The judge and the Coutances lawyer continued their jokes and their squabblings. And still only the poor wife hung her head.
Then all at once the judge began to mop his brow. The jury, to a man, mopped theirs. The witnesses and lawyers each brought forth their big silk handkerchiefs. All the court was wiping its brow.
"It's the heat," cried the judge. "Huissier, call the concierge; tell her to open the windows."
The concierge reappeared. Flushed this time, and with anger in her eye. She pushed her way through the crowd; she took not the least pains in the world to conceal her opinion of a court as variable as this one.
"Ah mais, this is too much! if the jury doesn't know its mind better than this!"—and in the fury of her wrath she well-nigh upset the crooked little old gentleman and his three-legged stool.
"That's right—that's right. I'm not a fine lady, tip me over. You open and shut me as if I were a bureau drawer; continuez—continuez—"
The concierge had reached the windows now. She was opening and slamming them in the face of the judge, the jury, and messieurs les huissiers, with unabashed violence. The court, except for that one figure in sombre draperies, being men, suffered this violence as only men bear with a woman in a temper. With the letting in of the fresh air, fresh energy in the prosecution manifested itself. The witnesses were being subjected to inquisitorial torture; their answers were still glib, but the faces were studies of the passions held in the leash of self-control. Not twenty minutes had ticked their beat of time when once more the jury, to a man, showed signs of shivering. Half a dozen gravely took out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and as gravely covered their heads. Others knotted the square of linen, thus making a closer head-gear. The judge turned uneasily in his own chair; he gave a furtive glance at the still open windows; as he did so he caught sight of his jury thus patiently suffering. The spectacle went to his heart; these gentlemen were again in a draught? Where was the concierge? Then the huissier whispered in the judge's ear; no one heard, but everyone divined the whisper. It was to remind monsieur le president that the concierge was in a temper; would it not be better for him, the huissier, to close the windows? Without a smile the judge bent his head, assenting. And once more all proceedings were at a standstill; the court was patiently waiting, once more, for the windows to be closed.
Now, in all this, no one, not even the wizened old man who was obviously the humorist of the tribune, had seen anything farcical. To be too hot—to be too cold! this is a serious matter in France. A jury surely has a right to protect itself against cold, against la migraine, and the devils of rheumatism and pleurisy. There is nothing ridiculous in twelve men sitting in judgment on a fellow-man, with their handkerchiefs covering their bare heads. Nor of a judge who gallantly remembers the temper of a concierge. Nor of a whole court sitting in silence, while the windows are opened and closed. There was nothing in all this to tickle the play of French humor. But then, we remembered, France is not the land of humorists, but of wits. Monsieur d'Alençon down yonder, as he rises from his chair to address the judge and jury, will prove to you and me, in the next two hours, how great an orator a Frenchman can be, without trenching an inch on the humorist's ground.
The court-room was so still now that you could have heard the fall of a pin.
At last the great moment had come-the moment and the man. There is nothing in life Frenchmen love better than a good speech—un discours; and to have the same pitched in the dramatic key, with a tragic result hanging on the effects of the pleading, this is the very climax of enjoyment. To a Norman, oratory is not second, but first, nature; all the men of this province have inherited the gift of a facile eloquence. But this Monsieur d'Alençon, the crooked man whispered, in hurried explanation, he was un fameux—even the Paris courts had to send for him when they wanted a great orator.
The famous lawyer understood the alphabet of his calling. He knew the value of effect. He threw himself at once into the orator's pose. His gown took sculptural lines; his arms were waved majestically, as arms that were conscious of having great sleeves to accentuate the lines of gesture.
Then he began to speak. The voice was soft; at first one was chiefly conscious of the music in its cadences. But as it warmed and grew with the ardor of the words, the room was filled with such vibrations as usually come only with the sounding of rich wind-instruments. With such a voice a man could do anything. D'Alençon played with it as a man plays with a power he has both trained and conquered. It was firmly modulated, with no accent of sympathy when he opened his plea for his client. It warmed slightly when he indignantly repelled the charges brought against the latter. It took the cadence of a lover when he pointed to the young wife's figure and asked if it were likely a husband could be guilty of such crimes, year after year, with such a woman as that beside him? It was tenderly explanatory as he went on enlarging on the young wife's perfections, on her character, so well known to them all here in Coutances, on the influence she had given the home-life yonder in Cherbourg. Even the children were not forgotten, as an aid to incidental testimony. Was it even conceivable a father of a young family would lead an innocent lad into error, fraud, and theft? "It is he who knows how to touch the heart!"
"Quel beau moment!" cried the wizened man, in a transport.
"See—the jury weep!"
All the court was in tears, even monsieur le president sniffled, and yet there was no draught. As for the peasant women and the shop keepers, they could not have been more moved if the culprit had been a blood relation. How they enjoyed their tears! What a delight it was to thus thrill and shiver! The wife was sobbing now, with her head on her uncle's shoulder. And the culprit was acting his part, also, to perfection. He had been firmly stoical until now. But at this parade of his wife's virtues he broke down, his head was bowed at last. It was all the tribune could do to keep its applause from breaking forth. It was such a perfect performance! it was as good as the theatre—far better—for this was real—this play-with a man's whole future at stake!
Until midnight the lawyer held all in the town in a trance. He ended at last with a Ciceronian, declamatory outburst. A great buzz of applause welled up from the court. The tribune was in transports; such a magnificent harangue he had not given them in years. It was one of his greatest victories.
"And his victories, madame, they are the victories of all Coutances."
The crooked man almost stood upright in the excitement of his enthusiasm. Great drops of sweat were on his wrinkled old brow. The evening had been a great event in his life, as his twisted frame, all a-tremble with pleasurable elation, exultingly proved. The women's caps were closer together than ever; they were pressing in a solid mass close to the railing of the tribune to gain one last look at the figure of the wife.
"It is she who will not sleep—"
"Poor soul, are her children with her?"
"No—and no women either. There is only the uncle."
"He is a good man, he will comfort her!"
"Faut prier le bon Dieu!"
At the court-room door there was a last glimpse of the stricken figure. She disappeared into the blackness of the night, bent and feeble, leaning with pitiful attempt at dignity on the uncle's arm. With the dawn she would learn her husband's fate. The jury would be out all night.
"You see, madame, it is she who must really suffer in the end." We were also walking into the night, through the bushes of the garden, to the dark of the streets. Our landlady was guiding us, and talking volubly. She was still under the influence of the past hour's excitement. Her voice trembled audibly, and she was walking with brisk strides through the dim streets.
"If Filon is condemned, what would happen to them?"
"Oh, he would pass a few years in prison—not many. The jury is always easy on the rich. But his future is ruined. They—the family—would have to go away. But even then, rumor would follow them. It travels far nowadays—it has a thousand legs, as they say here. Wherever they go they will be known. But Monsieur d'Alençon, what did you think of him, hein? There's a great man—what an orator! One must go as far as Paris—to the theatre; one must hear a great play—and even there, when does an actor make you weep as he did? Henri, he was superb. I tell you, superb! d'une éloquence!" And to her husband, when we reached the inn door, our vivacious landlady was still narrating the chief points of the speech as we crawled wearily up to our beds.
It was early the next morning when we descended into the inn dining-room. The lawyer's eloquence had interfered with our rest. Coffee and a bite of fresh air were best taken together, we agreed. Before the coffee came the news of the culprit's fate. Most of the inn establishment had been sent to court to learn the jury's verdict. Madame confessed to a sleepless night. The thought of that poor wife had haunted her pillow. She had deemed it best—but just to us all, in a word, to despatch Auguste—the one inn waiter, to hear the verdict. Tiens, there he was now, turning the street corner.
"Il est acquitté!" rang through the streets.
"He is acquitted—he is acquitted! Le bon Dieu soit loué! Henri—Ernest—Monsieur Terier, he is acquitted—he is acquitted! I tell you!"
The cry rang through the house. Our landlady was shouting the news out of doors, through windows, to the passers-by, to the very dogs as they ran. But the townspeople needed no summoning. The windows were crowded full of eager heads, all asking the same question at once. A company of peasants coming up from the fields for breakfast stopped to hear the glad tidings. The shop-keepers all the length of the street gathered to join them. Everyone was talking at once. Every shade of opinion was aired in the morning sun. On one subject alone there was a universal agreement.
"What good news for the poor wife!"
"And what a night she must have passed!"
All this sympathy and interest, be it remembered, was for one they barely knew. To be the niece of a Coutances uncle—this was enough, it appears, for the good people of this cathedral city, to insure the flow of their tears and the gift of their prayers.