“No, no, it was a jest—I have let myself be frightened by dreams—the sky is all full of laughter at me. They don’t do these things—not to the very young. O! little baby! Why didn’t you come?—my little unborn child—I was too young to bear even a little child—too easily deceived—it would have killed me, and I should have gone to heaven. Such a jest!—heaven for me?—Children, children, don’t laugh! I heard you down in the road—Look, though I’m not a mother, I can bear secrets—monstrous, horrible things. Don’t come near me—I should cry and cry to see your terror. I said, Don’t come near me—don’t—My God! they are not children at all! Louis, Louis, save me! I did it all for you!—Louis!—”
She struck blindly against the wall, and sank down moaning at its foot.
CHAPTER X
The trial of Mr Trix, ex-Prefect of Faissigny, for the murder of his patron, made a tremendous stir, not only locally, but throughout the Cisalpine Kingdom of Victor-Amadeus. It was really a trial of strength between the forces of revolt and those of reactionism—a tug of war between Piedmont and Savoy, with the Alps for toe-line. But from the first there was no doubt as to the issue. Wind, muscle, new blood, self-confidence, were all in favour of the Savoyard champions, while the acclamations of a whole nation, their neighbours and backers, thundered in their ears. Opposed were the degenerates of an effete régime; themselves not without a spitfire courage, but in physique no match for this new vigorous young Demos—for this bristling force suddenly sprung into life from seed of dead dragons’ teeth. To Savoy this opportunity to assert its virtual independence came at the ripe moment with the means to point the right moral. Cartouche offered himself providentially for the rope with which to test the relative haulage values of Progress and Conservatism. That was his obliging use at the moment.
He was not personally unpopular, save with the Illuminati, and other such fanatic extremists; and he was arraigned on a popular charge—that of having destroyed an enemy of the people. But he stood convicted of privilege—was an autocrat’s nominee—and the question at issue was not one of popularity but of principle. The severe justice of the people—now first coming into evidence—had to be vindicated; prejudice and partiality and other dynastic prerogatives had to be suppressed. Wherefore the matter was held to turn not so much on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, as on the necessity of making an example of a King’s favourite. Liberty, Justice and Equality, as representing in the bulk the new heresy of humanity, were unanimous in demanding the sacrifice of this scapegoat to the sins of his class. He was offered up, in the public esteem, long before he was sentenced.
And the worst of it for reactionism lay in the absence of an effective retort. It could not move for the pardon of the prisoner, if convicted, without appearing to hold him justified of the worst offence against itself. On the other hand, to surrender him to judgment by default, would be to admit the right of popular jurisdiction. So it endeavoured to temporise, weakly, by citing the parties in the case to appear before the Criminal Court of Turin; whereupon le Prieuré answered by bringing the prisoner to immediate trial, and sentencing him to be hanged incontinent in its own market-square before the church.
So much for the political aspects of this cause célèbre. The private and personal only ceased to be subordinate to them with the certainty of the democratic victory. Then at last general interest began to concentrate itself on the scapegoat.
He proved himself, in one way, to be a disappointing scapegoat—lent himself to be done to death with scarcely a show of resistance. It appeared as if he recognised his doom for a foregone conclusion, and was determined to accept the clamour for his aristocratic blood as a sign of an improving taste on the part of Jacques Bonhomme. He signified his disgust of any rudeness directed at himself; but was always ready to applaud, and retort on, the least essay of wit. During the brief course of the trial, he always seemed more concerned for his coat than his character, for his pose than his peril. Sometimes his dark eyes would take eager stock of the gloating audience, as if they sought among it the evidences of some sign or hope beyond their expectations; but as often he would seem to rebuke their credulity with a little laugh and shrug, and would recompose himself, with a weary insouciance, to the fatigue of the business.
The little Court of the Prefecture was crammed on the fatal day. In addition to clerks, advocates, public representatives of the Government and private reporters for the King, so many idle visitors, attracted by interest or curiosity, had latterly flocked into Le Prieuré, that the accommodations of Justice were hard set to find standing room for all. The place, indeed, was an inferno; but, luckily for its unclean spirits, quick evidence against, and short shrift for, the prisoner were timely in releasing them.
The leading interest, before the appearance of the accused, centred in the pièce de conviction, which lay on a green baize-covered table before the President. It had been necessary, for obvious reasons, to withdraw the blade, seven years hidden, from the body of its victim. That lay in the churchyard under consecrated ground; while a second grave was already morally digging, in the unhallowed acre, for its murderer. If the fact might be held, in any degree, to justify the indifferent attitude of the defence, it was as certain that it vindicated in all its impartiality the “severe justice of the people.” Six foot of earth was as much the right of an aristocratic as of a vulgar assassin.