Churchgoers abounded among the petty rentiers, manufacturers, and tradespeople of that clerical centre, where lack of religion was regarded as a shameful blot, and proved extremely prejudicial to one's pecuniary interests. Frantic was the pressure exercised by mothers and wives, led by all the priests, abbés, and monks of the six parish churches and the thirty convents, whose bells were always ringing. At Beaumont, in former times, the Church had been obliged to work with some discretion, for it had found itself in the presence of both an old Voltairean bourgeoisie and of revolutionary faubourgs. But there was no need for it to beat about the bush in that sleepy city of Rozan, whose traditions were entirely pious. The workmen's wives went to Mass, the women of the middle class formed all sorts of religious associations; and thus a holy crusade began; none refused to help in defeating Simon. A week before the trial the whole town had become a battlefield; there was not a house that did not witness some combat waged for the good cause. The wretched jurors shut themselves up, no longer daring to go out, for strangers accosted them in the streets, terrified them with evil glances or passing words, in which there lurked a threat to punish them in their pockets or their persons if they did not behave as good Catholics, and re-condemn the dirty Jew.
Marc was rendered yet more anxious by some information he received respecting Counsellor Guybaraud, who was to preside over the Assize Court, and Procureur Pacart, who was to conduct the prosecution. The first had been a pupil of the Valmarie Jesuits, to whom he owed his rapid promotion, and had married a very wealthy and very pious hunchbacked girl, whom he had received from their hands. The latter, an ex-demagogue, had been vaguely compromised in some gambling affair, and, becoming a frantic anti-semite, had rallied to the Church, from which he expected a post in Paris. Marc felt particularly distrustful of Pacart on observing how insidiously the anti-Simonists affected anxiety respecting his attitude, as if indeed they feared some revival of his revolutionary past. While they never ceased praising the lofty conscientiousness of Guybaraud, they spoke of Pacart with all sorts of reservations, in order, no doubt, to enable him to play the heroic part of an honest man, overcome by the force of truth, on the day when he would have to ask the jury for Simon's head. The very circumstance that the clericals went about Rozan dolefully repeating that Pacart was not on their side made Marc distrustful, for information from a good source had acquainted him with the undoubted venality of this man, who was ready for the vilest bargaining in his eager desire to regain a semblance of honour in some high position.
However, the desperate and deadly battle became at Rozan a subterranean one. The affair was not lightly prosecuted in drawing-rooms among the smiles of ladies, as at Beaumont. Nor was there any question of a liberal prelate like Monseigneur Bergerot resisting the Congregations from a dread lest the Church should be submerged and swept away by the rising tide of base superstition. This time the contest was carried on in the darkness in which great social crimes take their course; all that appeared on the surface was some turbid ebullition, a kind of terror sweeping through the streets as through a city stricken with a pestilence. And Marc's anguish arose particularly from that circumstance. Instead of again witnessing the resounding clash of Simonists and anti-Simonists, as at Beaumont, he was confronted by the stealthy preparations for a dark crime, for which a Guybaraud and a Pacart were doubtless the necessary chosen instruments.
Every evening David and Delbos repaired to the large room which Marc had rented in a lonely street, and ardent friends of all classes surrounded them. These formed the little sacred phalanx; each visitor brought some news, contributed suggestions and courage. They were determined that they would not despair. Indeed, after an evening spent together they felt inspirited, ready for fresh encounters. And they were aware that their enemies met in a neighbouring street, at the house of a brother-in-law of Judge Gragnon, who, having been summoned as a witness by the defence, was staying there, receiving all the militant anti-Simonists of the town—a procession of frocks and gowns that slipped into the house as soon as night had fallen. Father Crabot had slept there twice, it was said, and had then returned to Valmarie, where with a great display of humility he had cloistered himself in penitence.
Suspicious characters prowled about that sparsely populated district; the streets were not safe; and, accordingly, when David and Delbos quitted Marc at night, their friends accompanied them home in a band. One night a shot was fired; but the detectives, though always on the watch, could find nobody to arrest. But the favourite weapon of the priests is venomous slander, moral murder, perpetrated in a cowardly fashion in the dark. And Delbos became the chosen victim. On the very day when the trial was to begin, the number of Le Petit Beaumontais which reached Rozan contained an abominable disclosure, full of mendacity, a shamefully travestied story, half a century old, about the advocate's father. The elder Delbos, though of peasant stock, had become a goldsmith, in a small way, in the neighbourhood of the Bishop's residence at Beaumont; and the newspaper charged him with having made away with certain sacred vessels which had been entrusted to him for repair. The truth was that the goldsmith, robbed by a woman whom he was unwilling to denounce, had found himself obliged to pay the value of the stolen goods. There had been no prosecution; the affair had remained obscure; but one had to read that filthy print to realise to what depths of malevolence and ignominy certain men could descend. That painful, forgotten, buried misfortune of the father's was cast in the face of the son with an abundance of spurious particulars, vile imaginings, set forth in language which was all outrage and mire. And the desecrator of the grave, the murderously-minded libeller who wrote those things, had plainly obtained the documents he published from the very hands of Father Crabot, to whom they had been communicated, no doubt, by some priestly archivist. It was hoped that this unexpected bludgeon-blow would strike Delbos full in the heart, assassinate him morally, discredit him as an advocate, annihilate him to such a point that he would have neither the strength to speak nor the authority to gain a hearing in the defence of Simon.
However, the trial began one Monday, a hot day in July. Apart from Gragnon, whom it was intended to confront with Jacquin, the foreman of the first jury, several witnesses had been cited for the defence. Mignot, Mlle. Rouzaire, Daix, Mauraisin, Salvan, Sébastien and Victor Milhomme, Polydor Souquet, the younger Bongards, Doloirs, and Savins were all on the list. Fathers Crabot and Philibin, Brothers Fulgence and Gorgias had also been cited, though it was known that the last three would not appear. On the other side the Procureur de la République had contented himself with recalling the witnesses for the prosecution who had given evidence at the first trial. And the streets of Rozan had at last become animated with witnesses, journalists, and inquisitive folk, arriving in fresh batches by each succeeding train. Already at six o'clock in the morning a crowd assembled near the Palace of Justice eager to catch a glimpse of Simon. But a considerable military force had been set on foot, the street was cleared, and Simon crossed it between two rows of soldiers, set so closely together that none of the onlookers could distinguish his features. It was then eight o'clock. That early hour had been chosen in order to avoid the oppressive heat of the afterpart of the day when one would have stifled in the court-room.
The scene was very different from that presented by the brand new assize-hall of Beaumont, where a profusion of gilding had glittered in the crude light that streamed in by the lofty windows. At Rozan the assizes were held in an ancient feudal castle; the hall was small and low, panelled with old oak, and scarcely lighted by the windows of a few deep bays. One might have thought the place to be one of those dark chapels where the Inquisition pronounced sentence. Only a few ladies could possibly be admitted, and all of them, moreover, wore sombre garb. Most of the seats were occupied by the witnesses, and even the little standing-room usually allowed to the public had to be curtailed. The audience, packed since seven o'clock in that stern and mournful room, preserved a relative silence, through which swept a stealthy quiver. If the eyes of the onlookers remained ardent their gestures were restrained; they had come there for a subterranean execution, a work of suppression which had to be accomplished far from the light, with the least noise possible.
As soon as Marc was seated beside David, who went in with the witnesses, he experienced a feeling of anguish, a stifling sensation, as if the walls were about to crumble and bury them. He had seen all eyes turn in their direction. David, particularly, aroused great curiosity. Then Marc felt moved, for Delbos had just come in, looking pale but resolute amid the evil glances of most of the spectators, who were eager to ascertain if he had been upset by the infamous article which had appeared that morning. However, the advocate, as if arrayed in an armour of valour and contempt, remained for some time standing there, displaying only smiling strength and indifference.
Marc then interested himself in the jurors, scrutinising them as they entered, one by one, anxious as he was to ascertain to what kind of men the great task of reparation was confided. And he perceived the insignificant faces of various petty tradespeople, petty bourgeois, with a chemist, a veterinary surgeon, and two retired captains. On all those faces one found an expression of mournful disquietude, the signs of a desire to hide internal perturbation. The worries which had assailed those men since their names had become known had pursued them to that hall. Several had the wan countenances of devotees, of shaven, canting beadles, while others, red and corpulent, looked as if they had doubled their usual ration of brandy that morning in order to instil a little courage into their paunches. Behind them one could divine the entirety of that old priestly and military city with its convents and its barracks; and one shuddered to think that those men, whose minds and consciences had been deformed, stifled, by their surroundings, should be entrusted with such a work of justice.
But a buzzing spread through the hall, and all at once Marc experienced the most poignant thrill of emotion he had ever known. He had not seen Simon since his return, and now he suddenly perceived him, standing behind Delbos. And terrible was the apparition of that bent and emaciated little man, with ravaged features and bald cranium, on which only a few scanty white locks remained. What! that wreck, that puny remnant of a man was his old comrade, whom he had known so vivacious and refined! If Simon had never possessed any great physical gifts, if his voice had been weak, his gestures inelegant, at least a brazier of youth and faith had glowed within him. And the galleys had only given back that poor, broken, crushed being, a mere shred of humanity, in whom nought of the past subsisted save two flaming eyes, which alone proclaimed the invincible will and courage he preserved. One recognised him only by those eyes; and they, too, explained how he had been able for so many years to resist suffering, for their expression told of the world of fancy, of pure ideality, in which he had always lived. Every glance was turned upon him, but he did not seem conscious of it, such was the power he possessed of isolating himself. He gazed at the assembly in an absent-minded way until at last a smile of infinite tenderness came over his face as he perceived his brother David. Marc, who sat beside the latter, then felt him tremble in every limb.