"Madame," rejoined Lenet, "I say again to your Highness that Richon is not a coward,—that I will answer for him with my head; and if he capitulated, it was certainly because he could not do otherwise."
The princess, pale with rage, was about to hurl at Lenet one of the aristocratic invectives which she deemed a sufficient substitute for good sense; but when she saw the averted faces, and eyes that avoided her own, Lenet with head erect, and Ravailly looking down at the floor, she realized that her cause would indeed be lost if she persevered in that fatal system; so she resorted to her usual argument.
"Unfortunate princess that I am," said she; "every one abandons me, fortune as well as men! Ah! my child, my poor child, you will undergo the same fate as your father!"
This wail of womanly weakness, this burst of maternal grief, found, as always, an echo in the hearts of those who stood by. The comedy, which the princess had so often enacted with success, once more accomplished its purpose.
Meanwhile Lenet made Ravailly repeat all that he could tell him concerning the capitulation of Vayres.
"Ah! I knew it must be so!" he suddenly ejaculated.
"What did you know?" the princess asked him.
"That Richon was no coward, madame."
"What has confirmed you in that opinion?"
"The fact that he held out two days and two nights; that he would have been buried beneath the ruins of his fort had not a company of recruits rebelled and forced him to capitulate."