“I, Henri Marquis de Carcassonne, do hereby acknowledge and certify, that by various false and iniquitous charges, set on foot for objects and motives of my own, I did, many years ago, to wit in the year of our Lord 178-, cause and procure Louis, Count de Lacy, to be brought to trial for treason and dereliction of duty in the government of the possessions of the French crown in the East Indies: that I have every reason to believe the said Count de Lacy to have been totally and entirely innocent of the crimes thus laid to his charge, and, moreover, that two letters produced in court at the trial of the said count, and purporting to be parts of a correspondence between himself and Sir E. C—— were, to my certain knowledge, and with my cognizance, forged; not by myself, but a certain Giraud, apothecary to the household of the said count, for the purpose of procuring his condemnation; and that I prompted and encouraged the said Giraud to counterfeit the count’s hand, and forge the above mentioned documents, inasmuch as I found that the charges could not be sustained without them, and I feared the vengeance of the said Count de Lacy, if acquitted, on account of certain previous passages between us. I bitterly regret and repent of the crime I thus committed in procuring the death of an innocent man; and now finding that it pleases God to take me from this world, and that I have not many hours to live, I make this acknowledgment and confession solely to do justice to the memory of the said Count de Lacy, and to make atonement, as far as is in my power, for the evil and misery I have brought upon him and his family, trusting that God will accept my tardy repentance, through the merits of my Saviour Christ, I have hereunto, in my perfect senses, and with full knowledge and recollection of all the facts, set my hand, in witness of the truth of all the particulars contained herein, the above having been previously read over by me, in presence of the Reverend Pere de Noailles, having been taken down by him from my own lips.”
It seemed as if a mountain had been removed from my breast. I thought not of any advantages which might result to myself. I carried not my thoughts at all into the future. My father’s memory was cleared. His honor, his fair name was reëstablished. No crime now blackened the annals of my race, and when I turned and looked at the corpse of his murderer, I said with a free heart, and a sincere spirit, “May God forgive you, unhappy man.”
Poor Jeanette, who was by my side, and had been weeping a good deal during all these transactions, took me by the hand, saying, joyfully—
“All will go well now, Louis—all will go well. More depends upon that paper than you know. Keep it safe, keep it safe, and all will go well.”
It was necessary, however, in the first instance, to give a copy to Monsieur de Noailles, and when that was done, some further conversation ensued between us, in regard to the funeral of the Marquis de Carcassonne. I found that he had few, if any, friends in London; for long previous to his illness, he had been suspected by the principal emigrants in England of being a spy in the pay of the existing French government.
“I shall be willing to bear the expense,” I said; “if I can get any one to superintend the management.”
“From what I know,” replied Monsieur de Noailles, “I think that both the expense and trouble should fall upon the man below stairs. I have reason to believe that, for the last year, during which the Marquis has been in feeble health, Giraud has both ill-treated and plundered him, to a very great extent. The man is a hardened sinner, a scoffer, and an atheist; but the facts revealed in that document may, perhaps, frighten him into doing what is right, and I see no reason why you should be called upon, Monsieur de Lacy, to pay for that which he himself, I’m sure, is bound to do.”
I agreed perfectly in this view of the case; but we found ourselves deceived.
On descending to the shop, there was nobody in it but the boy whom I had seen there once before. He told us that Monsieur Giraud had called an hackney-coach, and had gone away in it, with three trunks. He never returned, and I conclude that, alarmed at the revelations likely to be made by the Marquis de Carcassonne in his dying moments, he fled from England, and died somewhere in obscurity. The boy told us that, before he went, he had cursed the old fool up stairs, and had said, that as he seemed determined to die with a cow’s tail in his hand, he should absent himself for a day or two, as he did not like such mummeries.
This afforded sufficient indication of his intention to induce me to request Monsieur de Noailles to make all the arrangements of the funeral in my name, and after having obtained his promise to that effect, and given him my address at Blackheath, I took my departure.