"As you will, gentlemen; but uncover yourselves, for I speak in the king's name."
Talhouet, who alone had his hat on, removed it. The four gentlemen stood erect and bare-headed, leaning on each other, with pale faces and a smile upon their lips.
The usher read the sentence through, uninterrupted by a murmur, or by a single gesture of surprise.
When he had finished—
"Why was I told," asked Pontcalec, "to declare the designs of Spain against France, and that I should be liberated? Spain was an enemy's country. I declared what I believed I knew of her projects; and, lo! I am condemned. Why is this? Is the commission, then, composed of cowards who spread snares for the accused?"
The usher made no answer.
"But," added Montlouis, "the regent spared all Paris, implicated in the conspiracy of Cellamare; not a drop of blood was shed. Yet those who wished to carry off the regent, perhaps to kill him, were at least as guilty as men against whom no serious accusations even could be made. Are we then chosen to pay for the indulgence shown to the capital?"
The usher made no reply.
"You forget one thing, Montlouis," said Du Couëdic, "the old family hatred against Bretagne; and the regent, to make people believe that he belongs to the family, wishes to prove that he hates us. It is not we, personally, who are struck at; it is a province, which for three hundred years has claimed in vain its privileges and its rights, and which they wish to find guilty in order to have done with it forever."
The usher preserved a religious silence.