"All I can say, Sir," replied the Count, "is that the note before you I received from the Chevalier de Rohan, and that no other interpretation than the one I have given was, or could be, put upon it by me. I knew of no schemes whatsoever against the state, and the Chevalier himself had certainly no other meaning than the one I have assigned. It will be very easy for you, however, gentlemen, to place the note before the Chevalier, and make him explain it himself. Though an unfortunate gentleman, he is still a gentleman of honour, and will tell you the truth. We have had no conversation together upon the subject. We have not even interchanged a word as we came hither, and you can compare his statement with mine."
"Perhaps that may have been done already, Monsieur de Morseiul," said Ormesson, "but at all events we think we may close your examination for to-day. The interrogation may be resumed at a future period, when other things have become manifest; and we have only, at present, to exhort you, on all occasions, to deal frankly and openly with the court."
"Such is always my custom to do, Sir," replied the Count. "I stand before you conscious of my innocence of any crime whatsoever, and, having nothing to conceal, am always ready to state frankly and truly what I know, except when by so doing I may wound or injure others."
Thus saying, he bowed to the Commissioners and retired. At the door of the chamber he found two musketeers waiting for his coming out, and, being placed between them, he was once more conducted back to the Bastille by the same way he had come. He was then led by the turnkeys, who were in waiting to receive him, to the same apartment which he had previously occupied; but before nightfall, it was notified to him that the liberties of the Bastille were restored to him, and he received some slight solace by knowing that he should not, for some time at least, be confined to the solitary discomfort of his own apartment, with no occupation but to stride from one side to the other, or gazing out of the narrow window, endeavour to gain a sight of what was passing in the rue St. Antoine.
CHAPTER III.
[THE EXECUTION.]
Within the walls of the Bastille, some weeks passed over almost without incident, but not without pain to the Count de Morseiul; but it would be tedious to detail all the feelings and the thoughts that crossed each other in his bosom during that period. He was still allowed a great degree of liberty, was permitted to take exercise in the great court, to converse with many of the other prisoners, and to hear whispers of what was taking place in the world without. But none of those whispers gave him any tidings of those he loved, any indication of his own probable fate, or any news of the church to which he belonged; and he remarked with pain, that while many of the other prisoners received visits from their friends and acquaintances, either no one sought to see him, or else those who did so were excluded by some express order.
He grieved over this, and perhaps felt, with some degree of bitterness of spirit, that the iron of captivity might not only enter into the soul, but might wear and corrode the mind on which it pressed. Such feelings made him at once apply himself eagerly to every thing that could occupy his thoughts, and turn them from contemplations which he knew to be not only painful, but hurtful also; and he soon created for himself a number of those occupations which many an unhappy man besides himself has devised at different times for the solace of captivity.
The library, however, was his greatest enjoyment. Though so fond of all manly exercises, and famous for his skill therein, he had from his youth loved the communing with other minds, in the pages which the hand of genius has traced, and which have been given forth as the deliberate effort of the writer's spirit. He loved, I say, that communing with other men's hearts and minds which is undisturbed by discussion, or wordy dispute, or any of the petty vanities that creep into the living conversation even of the great, the learned, and the good; and now, though the library was small, and perhaps not very well selected, yet there was many a book therein which afforded him sweet occupation during some, at least, of the melancholy hours of imprisonment.
At other times he walked the length of the court yard, gaining where he could a gleam of sunshine; and rather than suffer his thoughts, as he did so walk, to dwell upon the painful theme of his own fate, he would count the very stones of the pavement, and moralise upon their shapes and colours. Almost every day, during the period we have mentioned, the guard was turned out, the prisoners having their liberties were ordered to keep back, and a train of others in the stricter state of imprisonment were marched out to the arsenal. Amongst these was usually the unhappy Chevalier de Rohan; and the wistful, longing gaze with which one day he looked round the court as he passed through, seeming to envy the other prisoners the sort of liberty they enjoyed, caused the Count de Morseiul to task severely his own heart for the repinings which he felt at his own situation.