The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

(4)

The hall of the Hôtel de Ville at Aurannes was a good deal too large for the purpose to which it was now being put, for the proceedings were not really public, only the military being admitted. Yet at first there seemed to Laurent to be a crowd of faces; afterwards they resolved themselves into those of about thirty or forty officers, ranged fanwise on either side of the dais on which, at a long table, sat the Court itself.

But, after the first slight shock of dismay on finding that the audience was not directly behind Aymar but facing him, the young man had eyes for the Court only. There were nine of them, all of superior rank. In the middle sat Sol de Grisolles, the General-in-Chief of Brittany, the man who had been Cadoudal's lieutenant sixteen years before, and who, being implicated in his subsequent conspiracy, had suffered an imprisonment of ten years in surroundings so horrible that his health and vigour were gone, his eyesight almost ruined, and that he was an old man at fifty-four. There was his major-general, the Marquis de la Boëssière, on whom the King had actually bestowed full powers of leadership for the province, but who, on finding Sol de Grisolles already in command, had voluntarily subordinated himself to him, the abler to the less able; and there were the Chevaliers de Sécillon and de Margadel. The others Laurent could not identify . . . save one, indeed, the man who owed so much to his disgraced comrade, and who probably did not know it—M. du Tremblay, seen previously in such different surroundings.

An orderly showed them their places. In front of the dais, but at some distance from it, a table and a chair had been set for Aymar. Behind him, seats were to accommodate his witnesses, but they were apparently to give their evidence from another table, placed in a line with his. Laurent wondered if he would ever succeed in standing at it. But no one challenged his right to sit with de Fresne and Colonel Richard and an unknown man whom he guessed to be the landlord of the Abeille d'Or.

Then, after a pause which seemed interminable, after some consultation among the nine officers enthroned there, whispered comments from the onlookers and a steady fire of glances directed at the pale, uniformed, swordless young man seated alone at the little table, the General rose in his place.

"I wish to remind you, gentlemen," he said, as emphatically as his broken voice would permit, "that this is not a court-martial. Though the Vicomte de la Rocheterie's sword lies before us on the table (having originally been surrendered in circumstances about which we shall shortly hear) he is in no sense under arrest. He is here of his own free will, having asked for an investigation into his recent conduct, about which, as you are doubtless aware, very damaging rumours are in circulation, although no formal charge has been preferred against him. You, his fellow officers, are accordingly met here to give him an opportunity of clearing himself from the very grave imputation under which he rests of having betrayed his own men to the enemy on the night of the 27th of April last." He paused a moment and cleared his throat. "The procedure which we shall follow is that M. de la Rocheterie will first give us in outline his account of what occurred, and will then go over it in detail, producing his witnesses and answering any question which the Court may put to him. And, since there is no accuser, we are ready for him to begin at once."

So the lists were fairly set for what Aymar had said last night was a hopeless fight. He got to his feet, and, after a few words of thanks to the General-in-Chief and the Court for consenting to hear him, electrified everybody—and Laurent not least—by saying, firmly and quietly:

"I wish to begin by stating that I do not deny having sent certain information to the enemy on the night of 27th April, nor that my action was the cause of the disaster at Pont-aux-Rochers, nor that my men, believing me to have purposely betrayed them, shot me for it."

So strong a sensation here went round Court and audience alike that Aymar was obliged to pause. "Good Lord!" thought Laurent to himself, "what a way to open . . . and how like him!"

"But," went on Aymar, standing like a statue, "I emphatically deny the motive assigned to my action. I shall hope to prove to the Court that the disaster was the result, in reality, of a scheme which went wrong, that no treachery was intended for a moment, and that my men acted as they did under a misapprehension."

He began without more ado to read his summary, a short, lucid statement, making no appeal for mercy but laying a certain stress, as it proceeded, on the points which were undoubtedly in his favour. Such were, the important conversation with Saint-Etienne and M. du Parc at Keraven, showing that the whole scheme had been worked out beforehand, and that he could reasonably rely on Saint-Etienne's collaboration; his immediate return to his own men and the frantic haste he made to warn them; and his agreeing to give up his sword and court an enquiry—which, however, the precipitate action of his followers put for the time out of the question.

He then started to take his points in more detail. With regard to the conversation at the Abeille d'Or, the General or the Marquis de la Boëssière could bear out his statement that Colonel de Saint-Etienne and his regiment were at Keraven on April 27th. Of what passed at his interview with him, however, he had to acknowledge that he could not produce evidence, since M. de Saint-Etienne was dead, and he had failed to trace M. du Parc. He was perfectly aware how unfortunate this was for his case.

The Court concurred, and found voice in a member who remarked somewhat gratuitously that M. de la Rocheterie had then nothing to prove that the story of his "plan" was not concocted afterwards.

"That," responded Aymar a trifle drily, "is exactly the inference which may be drawn. But I can at least prove that I had an interview with those two gentlemen at the Abeille d'Or on that date. I will call the innkeeper himself for that purpose."

The questioning of that worthy over, Aymar proceeded with his narrative, and soon came (with what inward shrinking Laurent guessed) to the arrival at Sessignes of the Marquis—he did not name him—with news of grave peril to "a lady" who had rendered a service to the cause in 1813, and might therefore well stand in danger from the Imperialists now; and how, rejecting his impulse to give himself up in her stead, he decided to offer the Bonapartists his lieutenant's letter in exchange for her—with the fixed intention, however, of carrying out the rest of the plan exactly as sketched.

And then, as Laurent anticipated, the questions began.

"Who was the lady, Monsieur?"

"Is it not immaterial what her name was?" asked Aymar.

"No," replied the officer who had put the question, "not if we are to believe that she was in danger because of past services."

"You cannot take my word for those services?"

They shook their heads. Then someone said, "We quite appreciate that you want to keep her name out of this business, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, but we must know what those services were—and we must have some proof that the detained lady was really she who rendered them."

Aymar thereupon detailed Mme de Villecresne's exploit at Chalais, the results of which were highly beneficial to "a certain leader." And the Chevalier de Sécillon, suddenly declaring that he knew the story, and the name of its heroine, it was finally agreed that if a responsible witness wrote down the name of the lady detained by the Bonapartists and sent it up to the Court, and it proved to be the same, he would have established his point. But what witness could do this?

L'Oiseleur turned and exchanged a look with Colonel Richard, who nodded. So he announced that the witness whom he was about to call in any case would do this for him, since it was he who had had the lady in his hands. And, not a little to the general surprise, Colonel Richard, lately in command of the Imperialist troops at Saint-Goazec, was cited to give evidence for his defeated opponent.

He got up very impassively, writing down the name as he did so. It was passed up, and found satisfactory.

"I will now ask you, Colonel Richard," said Aymar, addressing him, "to tell the story of your receipt of M. de Fresne's letter, in order to show that no more was asked of you than this lady's safety—and that in actual fact even that bargain could not be carried out, because the lady was never really in danger."

At which revelation even members of the Court were observed to hold their heads.