“Good God!” exclaimed De Blenau, “is the Duke of Orleans implicated in this unfortunate business?”
The officer smiled. “Why, they do say, Sir, that the King himself is in the conspiracy. But as to the Duke, you know more of his share in it than any one else—at least so we are told. But I must now beg you to descend.”
“You are under a mistake, Sir,” replied De Blenau. “I know nothing of the Duke, and as little of the conspiracy.” And following the officer, he entered a house in the Place Terreaux, which had been changed for the time from one of the public offices of the city into a place of confinement, and offered all the security without the horrors of a prison. The windows were grated, it is true, but they looked out into the free world below, and the captive might sit there and forget that he was denied the power of joining the gay throng that passed along before his eyes in all the pride of liberty.
CHAPTER XIV.
Giving a good receipt for proving a man guilty when he is innocent.
DE Blenau had not been long in his new abode, before he learned that the express orders of Chavigni had caused him to be carried thither, rather than to Pierre-en-Scize, where his confinement would have been more strict; and he felt grateful for this mark of the Statesman’s consideration. For the first few days, too, he experienced every kind of attention, and was permitted to enjoy all sort of liberty consistent with his safe custody.
But this was not destined to endure long; and his imprisonment gradually became more rigorous than that which he had undergone in the Bastille. The use of books and writing materials was denied him, and every means of employing his thoughts seemed studiously withheld. This mode of weakening the mind, by leaving it to prey upon itself, had its effect even on De Blenau. He became irritable and desponding; and as he received no intimation in regard to the charge against him, he began to conjure up a thousand vague unreal images, and to destroy them as soon as raised.
After this had continued for some days, he was surprised by the door of his apartment opening one night, at the moment he was about to retire to rest, giving admittance to the corrupt Judge Lafemas, and a person habited as one of the Greffiers of the Court. There are some who are cruel from fear, and some from motives of interest; but few, I trust, who from natural propensity rejoice in the sufferings of a fellow-creature. Such, however, was the character of Lafemas—at least if we may believe the histories of the time; and in the present instance he entered the chamber of De Blenau with a countenance which certainly expressed no great unwillingness in the performance of what is always painful when it is a duty.
In this place we shall but give a small part of the conversation between De Blenau and the Judge; for the course of examination which the latter pursued toward the prisoner was so precisely similar in its nature to that which he followed on a former occasion in the Bastille, that its repetition is unnecessary, especially as our history is now hurrying rapidly to its awful and inevitable conclusion. A part of it, however, may serve to illustrate the charges brought against De Blenau, and the circumstances on which they were founded.
“Good night, Monsieur de Blenau,” said Lafemas, approaching the table at which he sat. “I did not think to meet you again in prison: I had hoped that when last you escaped so well, you would have been careful to keep yourself free from any thing of this kind.”