“So you confess your guilt?”
Once outside, the abbe confided Maurice to the care of three officers, who promised to go with him, to carry him by main force, if need be, to the hotel, and keep him there.
Relieved on this score, the priest re-entered the hall just in time to see the baron seat himself without making any response, thus indicating that he had relinquished all intention of defending his life.
Really, what could he say? How could he defend himself without betraying his son?
Until now there had not been one person who did not believe in the baron’s entire innocence. Could it be that he was guilty? His silence must be accepted as a confession of guilt; at least, some present believed so.
Baron d’Escorval appeared to be guilty. Was that not a sufficiently great victory for the Duc de Sairmeuse?
He turned to the lawyers, and with an air of weariness and disdain he said:
“Now speak, since it is absolutely necessary; but no long phrases! We should have finished here an hour ago.”
The oldest lawyer rose, trembling with indignation, ready to dare anything for the sake of giving free utterance to his thought, but the baron checked him.
“Do not try to defend me,” he said, calmly; “it would be labor wasted. I have only a word to say to my judges. Let them remember what the noble and generous Marshal Moncey wrote to the King: ‘The scaffold does not make friends.’”