“Citizen St. Just,” cried Schneider, “you will not allow the testimony of a ruffian like this, of a foolish girl, and a mad ex-priest, to weigh against the word of one who has done such service to the Republic: it is a base conspiracy to betray me; the whole family is known to favor the interest of the émigrés.”
“And therefore you would marry a member of the family, and allow the others to escape; you must make a better defence, citizen Schneider,” said St. Just, sternly.
Here I came forward, and said that, three days since, I had received an order to quit Strasburg for Paris immediately after a conversation with Schneider, in which I had asked him his aid in promoting my marriage with my cousin, Mary Ancel; that he had heard from me full accounts regarding her father’s wealth; and that he had abruptly caused my dismissal, in order to carry on his scheme against her.
“You are in the uniform of a regiment of this town; who sent you from it?” said St. Just.
I produced the order, signed by himself, and the despatches which Schneider had sent me.
“The signature is mine, but the despatches did not come from my office. Can you prove in any way your conversation with Schneider?”
“Why,” said my sentimental friend Gregoire, “for the matter of that, I can answer that the lad was always talking about this young woman: he told me the whole story himself, and many a good laugh I had with citizen Schneider as we talked about it.”
“The charge against Edward Ancel must be examined into,” said St. Just. “The marriage cannot take place. But if I had ratified it, Mary Ancel, what then would have been your course?”
Mary felt for a moment in her bosom, and said—“He would have died to-night—I would have stabbed him with this dagger.”[*]
* This reply, and, indeed, the whole of the story, is historical. An account, by Charles Nodier, in the Revue de Paris, suggested it to the writer.