Eight days later, they were driving through the faubourg of Troyes, where they learned that an order of the chief justice, transmitted through the procureur imperial of Troyes, commanded the release of the four gentlemen on bail during the Emperor’s pleasure. But Michu’s sentence was confirmed, and the warrant for his execution had been forwarded from the ministry of police. These orders had reached Troyes that very morning. Laurence went at once to the prison, though it was two in the morning, and obtained permission to stay with Michu, who was about to undergo the melancholy ceremony called “the toilet.” The good abbe, who had asked permission to accompany him to the scaffold, had just given absolution to the man, whose only distress in dying was his uncertainty as to the fate of his young masters. When Laurence entered his cell he uttered a cry of joy.
“I can die now,” he said.
“They are pardoned,” she said; “I do not know on what conditions, but they are pardoned. I did all I could for you, dear friend—against the advice of others. I thought I had saved you; but the Emperor deceived me with his graciousness.”
“It was written above,” said Michu, “that the watch-dog should be killed on the spot where his old masters died.”
The last hour passed rapidly. Michu, at the moment of parting, asked to kiss her hand, but Laurence held her cheek to the lips of the noble victim that he might sacredly kiss it. Michu refused to mount the cart.
“Innocent men should go afoot,” he said.
He would not let the abbe give him his arm; resolutely and with dignity he walked alone to the scaffold. As he laid his head on the plank he said to the executioner, after asking him to turn down the collar of his coat, “My clothes belong to you; try not to spot them.”
The four gentlemen had hardly time to even see Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne. An orderly of the general commanding the division to which they were assigned, brought them their commissions as sub-lieutenants in the same regiment of cavalry, with orders to proceed at once to Bayonne, the base of supplies for its particular army-corps. After a scene of heart-rending farewells, for they all foreboded what the future should bring forth, Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne returned to her desolate home.
The two brothers were killed together under the eyes of the Emperor at Sommo-Sierra, the one defending the other, both being already in command of their troop. The last words of each were, “Laurence, cy meurs!”