“Louis Guillaume, Baron d’Escorval, Commander of the order of the Legion of Honour, formerly Councillor of State under the Empire.”
“So you avow these shameful services? You confess——”
“Excuse me; I am proud of having had the honour of serving my country, and of being useful to her in proportion to my abilities——”
“Ah ha! very good indeed!” interrupted the duke with a furious gesture. “These gentlemen, my fellow commissioners, will appreciate those words of yours. No doubt it was in the hope of regaining your former position that you entered into this shameful conspiracy against a magnanimous prince.”
“You know as well as I do myself, sir, that I have had no hand in this conspiracy.”
“Why, you were arrested in the ranks of the conspirators with weapons in your hands!”
“I was unarmed, as you are well aware; and if I was among the peasantry, it was only because I hoped to induce them to relinquish their senseless enterprise.”
“You lie!”
The baron paled beneath the insult, but he made no response. There was, however, one man in the assemblage who could no longer endure such abominable injustice, and this was the Abbe Midon, who, only a moment before, had advised Maurice to remain calm. Abruptly leaving his place, he advanced to the foot of the platform.
“The Baron d’Escorval speaks the truth,” he cried, in a ringing voice: “as each of the three hundred prisoners in the citadel will swear. Those who are here would say the same, even if they stood upon the guillotine; and I, who accompanied him, who walked beside him, I, a priest, swear before the God who one day will judge us all, Monsieur de Sairmeuse, I swear we did everything that was humanly possible to do to arrest this movement!”