"Indeed!" demanded the Chevalier. "Can we get any proof of this?"
"Proof, Sir?" replied the dying man; "it was on that account I sent for you. The Count de Morseiul is ruined; and the cause of the reformed church is over; and all this evil has happened through my fault. I have heard, too, that he has offered to surrender himself to the axe, in order to buy safety for the rest of us. But surely the King--let him be as great a tyrant as he may--will not murder the man that saved his life."
"The King, Sir, is no tyrant," replied the Chevalier, "but a generous and noble master to those who are obedient and loyal: even to the disobedient he is most merciful; and if this fact could be made known to him, and proved beyond all doubt, I feel perfectly convinced that he would not only pardon the Count de Morseiul for his past errors, but show him some mark of favour, in gratitude for what he has done."
"The King does know it," replied Herval, sharply; "the King must know it; for I have heard that the whole papers of Hatréaumont fell into the hands of Louvois; and I have myself seen that foul tiger's name written to an order for my arrest as one of Hatréaumont's accomplices."
"But that does not prove," replied the Chevalier, "that either the King or Louvois knew of this act of the Count's."
"It does prove it," replied the dying man; "for the only letter I ever wrote to Hatréaumont in my life was to tell him that I had failed in my purpose of killing the tyrant; that every thing had gone fair till the Count de Morseiul came in between me and him, and declared, that I should take his life first. I told him all, every thing--how I got into the gardens of Versailles at night, and hid under the terrace where the King walked alone--how yon babbling fool betrayed my purpose to the Count, and he came and prevented me doing the deed I ought to have done, even if I had taken his life first. I told him all this, and I cursed the Count of Morseiul in my madness, over again and again--and now the man whose life he saved is seeking to bring him to the block."
"This is extraordinary and important," said the Chevalier: "I cannot believe that the King knows it. Louvois must have kept it from his ears. Will you make a deposition of this, my good fellow, as early to-morrow as we can get proper witnesses and a notary?"
"Early to-morrow?" said the man faintly, "early to-morrow, Chevalier?--I shall never see a to-morrow. Now is your only moment, and as for witnesses, quick, get paper and pen and ink. There is not half an hour's life in me. If you had come when first I sent, there would have been plenty of time. But now every moment is a loss."
"Quick, Riquet," cried the Chevalier, "bid the officer at the door run to my quarters, and bring down pen and ink and paper, without a moment's delay."
Riquet lost no time, and the Chevalier endeavoured as far as possible to keep Herval quiet till the means of writing were brought. The dying man would go on speaking, however, but with his voice becoming lower and lower, and his ideas evidently in some degree confused. Once or twice he spoke as if he were at Versailles, and in the presence of the King: then seemed as if he fancied himself conversing with Hatréaumont; and then again pronounced the name of Claire more than once, and talked of happiness. When Riquet and the officer returned, however, with the materials for writing, he had still strength and recollection enough to commence his declaration in a formal manner.