Hastening to the old Palais de Justice, she entered the great hall, the centre of which was then occupied by the famous marble table which Victor Hugo describes as being of a single piece, so long, and so broad and thick, that it was doubtful if in the world there was such another block of marble. Imploring the astonished judges to hear her, she knelt before them, and while scarcely daring to raise her eyes from the floor, she told them in trembling accents that in condemning her lover-husband, for such she deemed him, they had forgotten that she too was culpable; that by his death she would be sunk into sorrow and covered with ignominy; and that while seeking to avenge her, or repair her honour, they would bring upon her the opprobrium of all France!
The judges listened in bewildered silence, while in a low and still more tremulous voice, Renée continued thus:
"Messieurs—I will no longer conceal my crime. Remorse of conscience now forces me to declare that, thinking you might compel M. Pousset to marry me, I concealed the fact that I snared him into loving me—that I loved him first, and was thus the source of all my own sorrow! You deem it a crime that he took refuge in holy orders to avoid the fulfilment of his contract; yet, messieurs, that was not his doing, but resulted from the will of a proud and avaricious father, who is, in that matter, the real criminal. Spare him then, I implore you—spare him to the world, if not to me! He has declared that his orders preclude his marrying me; and for that declaration you ordain that he must die. Oh, what matters his asserting that he would formally espouse me if he could; and because he cannot, you condemn him to die, after giving him a choice. Who here can doubt that he would marry me in spite of his deacon's orders? Though I am but a weak and foolish girl, I know that we may yet be wedded, could we but obtain the dispensation of his Holiness Clement VIII. Daily we expect in Paris his Legate, who possesses sovereign powers. At his feet I will solicit that dispensation; and oh, be assured, messieurs, that my love and my prayers will obtain it. Suspend your terrible sentence, then, till he arrives."
After a pause, during which she was overcome with agitation, she spoke again:
"Think of all he has endured since his sentence has been delivered, and of all that I am enduring now! Should I have among you but a few voices for me, ought these not to win me some favour of humanity over the rest, though they be more in number! but alas! should all be inflexible, permit me, in mercy at least, to die with him I love, and by the same weapon."
It is recorded that the unhappy Renée's prayer met with a very favourable reception, and that the remarkable tone of her self-accusation, of having "ensnared" M. Pousset, gave a new colour to his alleged crime. "The judges," we are told, "lost not a word of her oration, which was pronounced with a clear sweet voice, and her words found a ready echo in their hearts, while the wonderful charms of her person, her tears and her eloquence, were too powerful not to melt, if they failed to persuade, men of humanity."
She was requested to withdraw while they consulted, and the First President, M. Villeroy, after collecting their votes, found himself enabled to grant a respite for six months, that a dispensation might be obtained if possible; and on this being announced, the plaudits of assembled thousands made the roof of the Palais de Justice ring in honour of Pousset's best advocate, Renée Corbeau.
Ere long the Roman Legate (Cardinal de Pellevé) came to Paris; but, on hearing the ugly story of Pousset, he conceived such indignation against him, for the whole tenor of his conduct, that he constantly turned a deaf ear to every application in his favour. Soon the last month of the respite drew to a close, and the fatal day was near when Pousset must be brought forth to die!
The unexpected hostility of the Legate cast Renée once more into despair, an emotion all the more terrible that the announcement of M. Villeroy had given her brilliant, perhaps happy, hopes. These, however, did not die. She obtained an audience of Henry IV. soon after he had stormed the town of Dreux and made his public entry into Paris, and, as he was cognisant of her miserable story, on her knees at his feet she once more sought an intercession for her doomed lover, if he could be termed so still.
Henry had too often felt the passion of love not to be moved by the singular beauty of the suppliant, by her sorrow, and the eloquence with which affection endowed her. He raised her from the floor and besought her to take courage, as he would now be her friend and advocate.