“Yes,” replied the lawyer and his clerk.
Camusot took a note which the servant offered him, and read as follows:—
“For the sake of many interests which will be obvious to you, my
dear Camusot, do not examine Monsieur de Rubempre. We have brought
ample proofs of his innocence that he may be released forthwith.
“D. DE MAUFRIGNEUSE.
“L. DE SERIZY.
“P. S.—Burn this note.”
Camusot understood at once that he had blundered preposterously in laying snares for Lucien, and he began by obeying the two fine ladies—he lighted a taper, and burned the letter written by the Duchess. The man bowed respectfully.
“Then Madame de Serizy is coming here?” asked Camusot.
“The carriage is being brought round.”
At this moment Coquart came in to tell Monsieur Camusot that the public prosecutor expected him.
Oppressed by the blunder he had committed, in view of his ambitions, though to the better ends of justice, the lawyer, in whom seven years’ experience had perfected the sharpness that comes to a man who in his practice has had to measure his wits against the grisettes of Paris, was anxious to have some shield against the resentment of two women of fashion. The taper in which he had burned the note was still alight, and he used it to seal up the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse’s notes to Lucien—about thirty in all—and Madame de Serizy’s somewhat voluminous correspondence.
Then he waited on the public prosecutor.
The Palais de Justice is a perplexing maze of buildings piled one above another, some fine and dignified, others very mean, the whole disfigured by its lack of unity. The Salle des Pas-Perdus is the largest known hall, but its nakedness is hideous, and distresses the eye. This vast Cathedral of the Law crushes the Supreme Court. The Galerie Marchande ends in two drain-like passages. From this corridor there is a double staircase, a little larger than that of the Criminal Courts, and under it a large double door. The stairs lead down to one of the Assize Courts, and the doors open into another. In some years the number of crimes committed in the circuit of the Seine is great enough to necessitate the sitting of two Benches.