“We purpose to afford my learned friend a further exercise for his ingenuity,” said M'Clelland; “for we shall now summon to the table a gentleman who has known the plaintiff long and intimately; who knew him in his real character of secret political agent abroad; and who will be able not alone to give a correct history of the individual, but also to inform the jury by what circumstances the first notion of this most audacious fraud was first suggested, and how it occurred to him to assume the character and name he had dared to preface this suit by taking. Before the witness shall leave that table I pledge myself to establish, beyond the possibility of a cavil, one of the most daring, most outrageous, and consummate pieces of rascality that has ever come before the notice of a jury. It is needless that I should say one word to exonerate my learned friends opposite,—they could, of course, know nothing of the evidence we shall produce here this day; the worst that can be alleged against them will be, the insufficiency of their own searches, and the inadequacy of the proofs on which they began this suit I can afford to reflect, however, upon their professional skill, as the recompense for not aspersing their reputation; and I will say that a more baseless, unsupported action never was introduced into a court of justice. Call Count Anatole Ysaffich!”
I shall not attempt to describe a scene, the humiliation of which no vindication of my honor can ever erase. For nearly three hours I listened to such details, not one of which I could boldly deny, and yet not one of which was the pure truth, that actually made me feel a perfect monster of treachery and corruption. Of that life which my own lawyer had given such a picturesque account, a new version was now to be heard; the history of my birth I had once given to Ysafflch was all related circumstantially.
He tracked me as the “adventurer” through every event and incident of my career,—ever aiming at fortune, ever failing; the hired spy of a party, the corrupt partisan of the press,—a fellow, in fact, without family, friends, or country, and just as bereft of every principle of honor.
Ysafflch went on to say that, having shown me Raper's letters and memoranda on one occasion, I had, on reading them, originated the notion of this suit, suggesting my own obscure birth and origin as sufficient to defy all inquiry or investigation. He represented me as stating that such actions were constantly brought, and as constantly successful; and even where the best grounds of defence existed, they who were in possession frequently preferred to compromise a claim rather than to contest it in open litigation. Though the Count always endeavored to screen himself behind his ignorance of English law and justice, he made no scruple of avowing his own complicity in the scheme. He detailed all the earliest steps of the venture,—where the family crest had been obtained; by whom it had been 'engraved on my visiting-cards. He mentioned, with strict accuracy, the very date I had first assumed the name of Carew; he actually exhibited a letter written by me on the evening before, and in which I signed myself “Paul Gervois.” With these matters of fact he mixed up other details, totally untrue,—such as a mock certificate of my father's marriage at a small town in Normandy, and which I had never seen nor heard of till that moment. He convulsed the court with laughter by describing the way in which I used to rehearse the part of heir and descendant of Walter Carew before him; and after a vast variety of details, either wholly or partially untrue, he produced my written promise to pay him an enormous sum, in the event of the success of the present action. Truly had the lawyer said, “Such an exposure was never before witnessed in a court of justice.” And now for above an hour did he continue to accumulate evidences of fraud and deception,—in the allegations made by me before officials of the court; affidavits sworn to; documents attested before consuls in Holland; inaccuracies of expression; faults even of spelling,—not very difficult to account for in one whose education and life for the most part had been spent abroad,—were all quoted and adduced, as showing the actual insolence of presumption which had marked every step of this imposture.
The Court interrupted the counsel at this conjuncture by an observation which I could not hear, to which the lawyer replied, “It shall be as your Lordship suggests; though, were I permitted a choice, I should infinitely prefer to probe this foul wound to its last depth. I would far rather display this consummate impostor to the world, less as a punishment to himself than as a warning and a terror to others.”
Here my counsel rose, and said that he had conferred with his learned friends in the case as to the course he ought to pursue. He could not express the emotions which he felt at the exposures they had just witnessed; nor did he deem it necessary to say for himself and his brother-barristers, as well as for the respectable solicitors employed, that the revelations then made had come upon them entirely by surprise. Well weighing the responsible position they occupied towards the plaintiff, whose advocates they were, they still felt, after the appalling exhibition they had witnessed,—an exposure unparalleled in a court of justice,—it would be unbefitting their station as gentlemen, and unworthy of their duty as barristers, any longer to continue this contest.
A low murmur of approbation ran through the court as the words were concluded, and the Judge solemnly added, “You have shown a very wise discretion, sir, and which completely exonerates you from any foreknowledge of this fraud.”
The defendant's counsel then requested that the Court would not permit the plaintiff to leave.
“We intend to prefer charges of forgery and perjury against him, my Lord,” said he; “and meanwhile I desire that the various documents we have seen may be impounded.”
On an order from the Judge, the plaintiff was now taken into custody; and after, as it appeared, one or two vain efforts to address the Court, in which his voice utterly failed him, he was removed.