And seized with a sort of panic he fled precipitately. Martial was stupefied with astonishment.
“One might really suppose that the wretch was sorry for what he had done,” he thought.
If that was really the case, Chupin was not alone.
M. de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse were secretly blaming themselves for the exaggerations in their first reports, and the manner in which they had magnified the proportions of the rebellion. They accused each other of undue haste, of neglect of the proper forms of procedure, and the injustice of the verdict rendered.
Each endeavored to make the other responsible for the blood which had been spilled; one tried to cast the public odium upon the other.
Meanwhile they were both doing their best to obtain a pardon for the six prisoners who had been reprieved.
They did not succeed.
One night a courier arrived at Montaignac, bearing the following laconic despatch:
“The twenty-one convicted prisoners must be executed.”
That is to say, the Duc de Richelieu, and the council of ministers, headed by M. Decazes, the minister of police, had decided that the petitions for clemency must be refused.