On the other side, Bonnemain did not lack officious defenders. And first, he had on his side the lower orders, naturally hostile to the aristocracy, and who, between two suspected individuals, naturally lean toward the one in the lowest station. Then came the friends of humanity, philanthropists by profession, emancipators of negroes, and all those individuals who busy themselves with the future prospects of nations, and the progress of society; a race abounding in compassionate souls, in whose estimation a man of the meanest nature, provided he is guiltless of actual crime, and especially if he has just been released from the galleys, becomes a prodigiously estimable character. These persons did not content themselves with treating as a frivolous, and even a barbarous prejudice, the opinion which sought to vindicate d'Aubian, by recalling the former suspicious circumstances of the life of his fellow-accused: they awaited more impatiently than the others the result of the trial, fully expecting to find in the acquittal of Bonnemain a new text for their sermons against the prejudices which dare to hold in legitimate suspicion those unfortunates whose moral education the galleys have just completed.
Between these two opinions a third sentiment prevailed: it was that of those impartial men, who, to reconcile all differences, maintained that both the accused were equally guilty, and anticipated the verdict of the jury, by proclaiming their confederation to be beyond a doubt. This third party, which it was whispered had good reasons for its existence, succeeded in making the difficulty more complicated instead of clearing it up.
While the crime and the approaching trial were thus the general topic of conversation, on both sides of the Garonne, for twenty leagues around, the investigation was pursued with the activity which the importance of the case and the near approach of the assizes demanded. The details of the inquiry seemed to add weight to the opinion of those who were for acquitting the galley-slave at the expense of the lover. To the reiterated questions put to them, the prisoners both persisted in the system of absolute denial behind which they had, in the first instance, entrenched themselves; but in proportion as the new facts brought to light during the procedure appeared favorable to Bonnemain, so much the more overwhelming did they seem for Arthur. Except this latter, who was unwilling to make any disclosures, no one at the time of the attempt had seen the galley-slave. Arrested at break of day on the road to Bordeaux, it was no difficult matter for him to explain the cause of his early peregrination. His story was, that suspecting his companions had discovered his real condition, he was fearful of being denounced by them to the officers of justice, and of being pursued for having broken his sentence of banishment. That he might not be arrested, he had resolved to quit the country, and had set out in the middle of the night that his departure might not be noticed. The pieces of gold found upon him were the fruits of economy, and the amount was not sufficient to render this assertion improbable. Beside, no traces of blood had been discovered upon his dress, either in consequence of his having changed his clothes between the commission of the crime and his arrest, or of his having, in the very perpetration of the deed, preserved sufficient coolness to avoid all tell-tale stains. In fact his hands, which were carefully examined, seemed clean, without the appearance of having been recently washed; for the adroit villain, to avoid giving a pretext for suspicions which might have been excited by a neatness seldom practised by country laborers, a race of men in general very guiltless of ablutions, had with ingenious refinement worn gloves when he committed the deed. As for the knife which was used, no one had ever seen it in the possession of the culprit; and were it not for the circumstance of his former condemnation, he would probably have at once been set at liberty for want of proofs.
But while the innocence of Bonnemain, at each new step in the investigation, appeared more evident, proofs more and more weighty accumulated around Arthur; proofs sufficient to have established his guilt, even without the damning declaration of Monsieur Gorsay. The knife, it is true, could not be proved as belonging to him; but other evidence was brought forward, not less conclusive. The rope-ladder was identified by a rope-maker, who declared that he had sold it to Monsieur d'Aubian some months previously. It was evident from this fact that the entry of Arthur into the park was not accidental but premeditated; the instruments used for scaling walls being found in his possession. It was farther proved that during the summer Monsieur Gorsay had received at Bordeaux a payment of twenty thousand francs, which he had immediately converted into gold, and that d'Aubian, who was the fellow traveller of the old man on the occasion, had knowledge of these two facts. On an investigation of the previous life of the accused, it appeared that for several years past, he had lost at play large sums of money, and had contracted debts, for the discharge of which his patrimony seemed insufficient; and when the domiciliary visit was made to his house, very little money was found there. From all these circumstances, skilfully grouped, and made to throw light upon each other by their juxtaposition, the gentlemen of the law, practised in the subtle deductions of judicial logic, found little difficulty in arriving at a decisive conclusion. In their eyes, Arthur d'Aubian, ruined by play, and unable to borrow more money, had determined to commit a robbery, which chance had nearly converted into a murder. Indeed, it was only those who were most lenient in their judgment, who admitted this last supposition. The Dracos of the bar considered the premeditation of the murder, as well as of the lesser crime, fully established.
Such was the situation of affairs, and the state of public opinion, when the court at length opened at the principal city of the department. The prisoners had been removed a few days previously from the house of detention at Reole to the central prison of Bordeaux. The witnesses, among whom were Monsieur Gorsay and his wife, arrived at that city shortly afterward. At the approach of the last scene of a drama, with which all minds had been occupied for more than two months, public curiosity was raised to a pitch of extreme excitement. The disclosures of the inquest had thinned the ranks of the defenders of Arthur: the women alone generally remained true to him; and the stronger the presumptive proofs appeared against him, the more ardent they became in his defence.
'What signify all these quibbles of the law?' said the most zealous of his fair partizans; 'he has been known to lose money at cards; this only proves that he is not lucky at play. He has debts; how could it be otherwise, when a young man goes into society without a fortune? And above all, it seems he sometimes made use of a rope-ladder. This is the grand crime! Poor young man!'
The rope-ladder, indeed, had contributed to strengthen in the hearts of many of the defenders of Arthur the interest which he had at first excited. Even in the bosom of the court itself a party had declared in his favor.
'If you convict him I will never forgive you!' said the wife of the judge-advocate to her husband, who was charged with the support of the prosecution.