For a moment the lawyers made no response. This monstrous seance had aroused a storm of indignation and disgust within their breasts, and they looked questioningly at each other.
“We are all disposed to undertake the prisoner’s defence,” at last replied the eldest of the three; “but we see him for the first time; we are ignorant of his grounds of defence. We must ask a delay; it is indispensable, in order to confer with him.”
“The court can grant you no delay,” interrupted M. de Sairmeuse; “will you accept the defence, yes or no?”
The advocate hesitated, not that he was afraid, for he was a brave man: but he was endeavoring to find some argument strong enough to trouble the conscience of these judges.
“I will speak in his behalf,” said the advocate, at last, “but not without first protesting with all my strength against these unheard-of modes of procedure.”
“Oh! spare us your homilies, and be brief.”
After Chanlouineau’s examination, it was difficult to improvise there, on the spur of the moment, a plea in his behalf. Still, his courageous advocate, in his indignation, presented a score of arguments which would have made any other tribunal reflect.
But all the while he was speaking the Duc de Sairmeuse fidgeted in his gilded arm-chair with every sign of angry impatience.
“The plea was very long,” he remarked, when the lawyer had concluded, “terribly long. We shall never get through with this business if each prisoner takes up as much time!”
He turned to his colleagues as if to consult them, but suddenly changing his mind he proposed to the prosecuting counsel that he should unite all the cases, try all the culprits in a body, with the exception of the elder d’Escorval.