devotion to feel sure that, of all the accused, he stood in
greatest danger, as well because of his antecedents as of
the share he had doubtless borne in the present enterprise.
The Abbe Groujet, his sister and Marthe were all at sea
among the probabilities to which this opinion gave rise,
but after protracted meditation they allowed their mind
to settle upon a meaning of some sort. The condition of
absolute doubt demanded by Descartes is as little obtain-
able in the brain of man as is a vacuum in nature, and the
mental operation by which it might be induced would be,
like the action of the air-pump, an unnatural and excep-
tional situation. Whatever may be the subject under con-
sideration, we always have a belief of some kind. Now,
Marthe's fear and dread of the guilt of the accused were so
great that her fears became belief, and that mental state was
disastrous to her. One evening about ten o'clock, five days
after the gentlemen's arrest, just as she was making ready
for bed, she was summoned to the courtyard by her mother,
who had come in from the farm on foot.
"A workingman of Troyes wishes to have a word with
you," she said to Marthe; "he is sent by Michu, and is
waiting for you in the sunken road."
The two women went by way of the gap as being the
directest route. The obscurity in the sunken road was such
202 BALZAC'S WORKS
that Marthe could distinguish nothing save the shadowy
outlines of a man's form almost confounded with the black-
ness of the foliage.
"Speak, madame, that I may be assured that you are
Mme. Michu and not another," said this person in a voice
which told that he was ill at ease.
"Certainly," Marthe replied. "And what is your will?"
"It is well," said the stranger. "Give me your hand,
you have no cause to fear me. I am come," he added,
bending over and speaking in Marthe's ear, "to give you
a message from Michu. I am one of the employes of the
jail, and if my superiors should discover my absence we
should ail be lost. You may trust me. Your good father
got me my place there long ago, and that is why Michu
selected me for this service."
He placed a letter in Marthe's hand, and, without wait-
ing for an answer, disappeared in the direction of the forest.
Marthe shivered slightly as she reflected that now, doubt-
less, the great mystery was about to be made clear to her.
She ran with her mother at full speed to the farmhouse, and
locking herself in a room, sat down and read the following
letter:
"My dear Marthe — You can rely on the discretion of
the bearer of this letter, he can neither read nor write. He
was with us in the Babeuf conspiracy and is a strong Repub-
lican; your father often made use of him, and he regards
the Senator as a traitor. Now, my dear wife, I must tell
you that the Senator has been safely bestowed by us in the
cavern where the masters were concealed once on a time.
The poor man was only given provender for five days, and
as it is very much bur interest that he should live, as soon
as you have read this scrap of writing carry him victuals
sufficient to last him for at least another five days. The
forest will undoubtedly be watched; observe the same pre-
cautions that we used to observe for our young masters.
Don't speak to Malin, don't lisp a word to him, and put on
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 203
one of our masks; you'll find them on the cellar steps.
Unless you wish to imperil both our heads, you will pre-
serve the strictest silence in relation to this secret that I am
compelled to trust you with. Don't breathe a word of it to
Mile, de Cinq-Cygne, she might give us away. You need
have no fear for me. The affair is sure to come out all
right, and when the time comes Malin himself will be our
savior. Finally, I need not tell you to burn this letter as
soon as you have read it, for should a single line of it be
seen it might cost me my head. I send you a thousand
kisses. MiCHU."
The existence of the cavern situated under the bluff in
the middle of the forest was known only to Marthe, her son,
Michu, the four gentlemen and Laurence: at least that was
what Marthe believed, to whom her husband had said noth-
ing of his encounter with Peyrade and Corentin. Thus the
letter, of which moreover the handwriting and signature ap-
peared to her to be Michu 's, could have come from no one
but him. It IS certain that if Marthe had gone at once and
taken counsel with her mistress and her two advisers, who
knew the innocence of the accused, the shrewd attorney
would have had his eyes opened to the web of perfidy that
had been woven about his clients; but Marthe, acting, as
women generally do, on the impulse of the moment, and
controlled by considerations which appeared to her self-
evident, threw the letter into the fire. Actuated, however,
by a passing and, for her, unusual access of prudence, she
rescued from the flames a portion of the letter before it was
consumed; it contained the opening lines, in which there
was nothing that could compromise anybody, and she sewed
the paper into the skirt of her gown. A little scared by the
reflection that the successor of the old monks had been fast-
ing for four-and-twenty hours, she determined to take him
bread, meat and wine that same night. Her curiosity, per-
haps, as well as her humanity, had something to do with
deciding her not to postpone her good deed until the mor-
204 BALZAC'S WORKS
row. She heated her oven and with her mother's assistance
concocted a duck-and-rabbit pie and a rice cake, baked with
her own hands two round loaves of bread, roasted a pair of
fowls, and brought up from the cellar three bottles of wine.
It was about half after two in the morning when she started
for the forest, carrying her provender in a great hamper and
accompanied by Couraut, who, on expeditions of this nature,
was unsurpassed as a scout and bodyguard. He detected
the presence of strangers at incredible distances and, when
satisfied of their proximity, would return to his mistress,
uttering low growls and keeping his eyes fixed on the
quarter where danger threatened.
Marthe reached the pond about three o'clock and left
Couraut there to do sentry duty. After a half hour of labor
devoted to uncovering the entrance, she stood before the
door of the vault, in her hand a dark lantern, her face
shielded by a mask which, as her husband had intimated,
she had found upon the cellar steps. The Senator's seclu-
sion seemed to have been prearranged long in advance. A
hole about a foot square that Marthe had not seen there pre-
viously had been roughly cut in the upper portion of the
iron door that closed the vault; but in order that Malin,
with the time and patience of which prisoners have such abun-
dance, might not lift from its sockets the wooden bar that
held the door in place, it had been fastened with a padlock.
The Senator, who had risen from his bed of moss, sighed
wearily on beholding a masked face; he perceived that the
time was not yet come for his deliverance. He observed
his visitor as well as he could by the fitful light of the dark
lantern, and recognized her by her garments, her corpulence
and movements; when she passed the pie in through the
opening he dropped it to grasp her hands, and made a
vigorous effort to force from her finger two rings, her
wedding-ring and a little circlet given her by Mile, de
Cinq-Cygne.
"You will not attempt to deny your identity, my dear
Madame Michu ? ' ' said he.
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 205
Marthe doubled up her fist as soon as she felt the contact
of the Senator's fingers and gave him a sturdy blow on the
chest. Then, without a word said, she went and cut a suit-
ably strong branch and on the end of it handed him the
remainder of the provisions.
"What do they mean to do with me?" he asked.
Marthe moved away without vouchsafing him an answer.
On her return, about five o'clock, she found herself on the
edge of the forest and was warned by Couraut of the pres-
ence of an intruder. She turned and retraced her steps in
the direction of the pavilion where she had lived so long;
but when she came out upon the avenue she was descried
from a distance by the garde champetre of Gondreville.
She adopted the course of taking the bull by the horns and
going straight up to him.
"You are early abroad this morning, Madame Michu!"
said he as she came up with him.
"We are so unfortunate as to be without a servant, and
I am forced to do the work of one," she replied. "I am on
my way to Bellache to get some garden seeds."
"Have you no seed at Cinq-Cygne?" inquired the
garde.
Marthe made no answer. She continued on her way,
and on reaching Bellache asked Beau visage to oblige her
with several different kinds of seeds, adding that M.
d'Hauteserre wished to change the varieties in his garden
and had instructed her to get them. Soon after she had
left, the garde from Gondreville came to the farm to find
out what had been Marthe 's business there. Six days later
Marthe, become more prudent, selected midnight as the
hour for taking the provisions, in order to escape the obser-
vation of the guards that were evidently set to watch the
forest. After she had a third time conveyed food to the
Senator, she was seized with something approaching terror
on hearing the cure read aloud the newspaper account of the
public examination of the accused, for by that time the trial
had begun. She took the Abb^ Goujet aside, and, after
206 BALZAC'S WORKS
swearing him to secrecy as to her revelations no less than
if she were confessing to him, produced the charred rem-
nants of the letter she had received from Michu, informed
him of its purport, and let him into the secret of the Sen-
ator's place of confinement. The cure immediately asked
Marthe if she had any letters from her husband that would
enable him to verify the writing. Marthe went home to
the farm, in pursuance of this request, and found awaiting
her there a subpoena to appear as a witness before the court.
On her return to the chateau she found that Abbe Goujet
and his sister had also been subpoenaed on behalf of the ac-
cused. All were obliged, therefore, immediately to under-
take the journey to Troyes. Thus all the actors in this
drama, even to those who played the minor parts, found
themselves reassembled on the stage where the destinies of
the two families were to be decided.
In France the localities are few and far between where
justice is at pains to borrow from inanimate objects a portion
of that prestige which should always accompany it. What
greater social mechanism is there, after religion and royalty ?
Everywhere, in Paris even, the inconvenience of the public
buildings, entirely unadapted to their purpose, their out-
of-the-way location and unclean surroundings, their nudity,
the total absence of all attempt at appropriate decoration, in
a nation than which no country on the face of the earth
makes louder claim to artistic preeminence, detract enor-
mously from the influence of that great engine of civiliza-
tion. In almost all towns and cities the arrangement is the
same. At the furthermost end of a long, rectangular room
one sees a desk covered with green cloth, raised on a plat-
form, behind which are seated the judges on common,
tawdry fauteuils. To the left is the seat of the public
prosecutor, and on the same side, parallel with the wall, a
long inclosed space or box, filled with chairs, for the jury.
Facing the jury is another box, in which there is a wooden
bench, on which sit the accused and the gendarmes, their
guardians. The clerk of the court has his place just under
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 207
the raised platform, at a table on which are arrayed the
legal documents pertaining to the case that is being argued.
Before the introduction of the imperial system of procedure,
the government commissary and the directeur du jury each
had a chair and table, one on the right and the other on the
left of the judges' desk. Two court attendants move to
and fro in the vacant space at one side of the clerk's table,
where the witnesses stand to give their testimony. Counsel
for the defence have chairs placed for them immediately
under the prisoners' dock. A wooden balustrade, about half-
way down the room, connecting the dock and the jury-box,
forms an inclosure in which are benches reserved for wit-
nesses who have testified and certain privileged spectators.
Then, facing the judges and directly over the door of en-
trance, there is always a dirty, unsavory gallery, closed to
all except the authorities and such women as may chance
to enjoy the acquaintance of the president, upon whom
devolves the policing of the audience. The general public
is at liberty to stand in the space that is left between the
outer door and the balustrade. This, the normal appearance
of French tribunals and assize courts of the present day, was
that of the criminal court of Troyes.
In April, 1806, neither the president and four judges
who constituted the court, nor the public prosecutor, nor
the directeur du jury, nor the commissary of the govern-
ment, nor the attendants, nor counsel, nor anybody, in fact,
the gendarmes excepted, wore any special costume or dis-
tinctive emblem to give a little life and color to the naked-
ness of the room and the not very imposing array of persons
in it. The crucifix was missing, and was not there to afford
its salutary lesson to either judges or defendants. Every-
thing was repulsive, cheerless and commonplace. That
decent ostentation, which is so helpful in the cause of so-
cial order, perhaps affords a little comfort to the criminal.
The morbid interest exhibited by the populace was what it
has always been, what it always will be, on occasions of this
nature, so long as there is no reform in manners, so long as
208 BALZAC'S WORKS
France neglects to recognize the fact that public admission
to the hearings does not of necessity imply publicity, and
that the publicity given to the proceedings constitutes a
penalty of such barbarous severity that, if the legislator
had suspected the result, he would never have inserted it
in the Code. Customs are often more cruel than the laws.
Customs are the men of flesh and blood, the law is the con-
crete reason of a country. Customs, which often are devoid
of reason, are stronger than the law. Men and women came
flocking around the court-house in droves. As is usual in
trials of such importance, the president was obliged to call
on the commander of the garrison for troops to guard the
doors. The audience behind the balustrade was so closely
packed that the people came near smothering. M. de
Granville appeared for Michu, M. Bordin for the MM.
de Simeuse, and a lawyer of Troyes was to plead the cause
of MM. d'Hauteserre and Gothard, the least compromised of
the six defendants. They were at their post in good season,
before the opening of the court, with faces indicative of
quiet confidence. As the physician is careful not to exhibit
his apprehensions before his patient, so in like manner the
lawyer always shows a hopeful face to his client. This is
one of those rare cases when hypocrisy becomes a virtue.
When the accused were conducted to their places, there
rose a general murmur of approval at sight of the four
young men who, during their captivity of twenty days
passed in no very comfortable frame of mind, had lost a
little of their color. The perfect resemblance between the
twins aroused the liveliest interest. Perhaps the beholders
thought that nature owed it to one of her choicest rarities to
exert a special protection over them, and every one felt like
doing something to atone for the unkindness with which
destiny had treated them. Their noble, frank and simple
countenance, whereon there was no trace visible of either
fear or of bravado, appealed particularly to the women.
The four gentlemen and Gothard appeared in the clothes
that they were wearing when arrested, but Michu, whose
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 209
garments were to be used as an "exhibit" in the trial, had
donned his best attire: a blue frockcoat, a brown velvet
waistcoat a la Robespierre, and a white cravat. The poor
man was made to pay for the unattractiveness of his appear-
ance. Whenever he changed his position or allowed his
bright, piercing, yellow eyes to wander over the assemblage,
he was greeted with a suppressed murmur of repulsion.
The audience chose to see the finger of God in his appear-
ance on the prisoners' bench, on which so many innocent
persons had sat in the past, owing to the machinations of his
father-in-law. The man, truly great in his way, repressed a
bitter smile as he looked at his masters. He seemed to say
to them, "You see I am not of much assistance to your
cause!" These five defendants exchanged pleasant saluta-
tions with their counsel. Gothard persisted in acting the
part of an idiot.
When the jury was finally impanelled, after a prudent
exercise of their right of challenge by the counsel for the
defence — to assist whom in this part of their duty the Mar-
quis de Chargeboeuf came and courageously took a seat
beside MM. Bordiu and de Granville — and the indictment
read, the accused were separated preparatory to proceeding
with their examination. All displayed remarkable unanim-
ity in their answers. After taking horseback exercise in the
park during the morning, they had returned at one o'clock
to breakfast at Cinq-Cygne; after the repast, from three
o'clock until half-past five, they had betaken themselves
again to the forest. When the president asked the MM. de
Simeuse to explain what had taken them abroad at such an
early hour, they both declared that since their return they
bad been thinking of buying back Gondreville, and, sup-
posing they should have dealings with Malin, who had
come down the day before, they had ridden out with their
cousin and Michu to inspect the forest, with the purpose of
acquiring such information as would enable them to treat
intelligently. While they were thus engaged the MM.
d'Hauteserre, their cousin and Gothard had been hunting a
210 BALZAO'S WORKS
wolf that the peasants had sighted. If the directeur du
jury had used the same zeal in following up the trail of
their horses in the forest that he had shown in investigating
the tracks left by those which had crossed the park of
Gondreville, he would have had abundant proof that their
ride that day had taken them to regions far distant from the
chateau.
The examination of the MM. d'Hauteserre tallied with
that of the MM. de Simeuse, and agreed with the statements
made by them at the preliminary inquiry. The necessity of
accounting in some way for their prolonged absence from
the chateau had suggested to each of the defendants the
idea of attributing it to the chase. Some peasants had
started a wolf in the forest a few days previously, and they
all availed themselves of this circumstance as a pretext.
However, the public prosecutor called the attention of
the court to certain discrepancies between the preliminary
inquiry, in which the MM. d'Hauteserre stated that they
were all hunting in company, and the hypothesis adduced
at the open hearing, which left the MM. d'Hauteserre and
Laurence hunting while the MM. de Simeuse were making
an appraisal of the forest.
To this M. de Granville replied that as the crime im-
puted to his clients had been committed between the hours
of two and half-past five, credence should be given to the
accused when they explained how they had passed the
morning.
The prosecutor rejoined that it was of the highest im-
portance to the prisoners to conceal their preparations for
disposing of the Senator after his abduction.
The adroitness of the defence was apparent to every one.
Judges, jury and audience saw that ii the prosecution gained
the day it would be only after a hotly contested battle.
Bordin and M. de Granville seemed to have foreseen every
point. Innocence is expected to give a clear and plausible
account of its actions. The duty of counsel for the defence,
therefore, is to set up a probable romance against the im-
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 211
probable romance of the prosecution. For the defending
counsel, who regards his client as innocent, the accusation
becomes a fable. Upon the whole, the result of the public
examination of the four gentlemen was favorable to them.
So far all was well. But Michu's examination was a more
serious business; here the combat began in earnest. Every-
body saw then why M. de Granville had elected to defend
the servant in preference to the masters.
Michu confessed to having threatened Marion, but de-
nied having used the violent expressions charged against
him. As for his alleged attempt to shoot Malin from am-
bush, he asserted that he was simply walking in" the park;
the Senator and M. Grevin must have been alarmed at sight
of the muzzle of his gun, and imputed to him hostile inten-
tions instead of the perfectly peaceful ones that he was
actuated by. He said that in the twilight it was possible
for a man unaccustomed to the use of firearms to think that
a gun was aimed at him when it was resting quietly on its
owner's shoulder. To account for the condition of his
clothing at the time of his arrest, he declared that he had
fallen into the moat as he was returning home.
"It was too dark to see well what I was about," said
he, "and I had a little difficulty, as you may say, with
the stones, which gave way under me when I attempted,
with their assistance, to lift myself up into the sunken
road."
As for the plaster that Gothard had carried to him, he
maintained, as he had done at his previous examination, that
he had used it to reset one of the posts of the fence in the
sunken road.
The public prosecutor and the president called on him to
explain how he could have been at the same time in the gap
at the chateau and up in the sunken road resettmg a post of
the fence, especially as the juge de paix, the gendarmes and
the garde champ^tre declared that they had heard him ap-
proaching from below. Michu's answer was that M. d'Haute-
serre had scolded him for not having sooner made those
212 BALZAC'S WORKS
trifling repairs, which he was desirous of having completed
because of a threatened litigation between him and the com-
mune; he (Michu) had therefore gone at once to inform him
that the fence was mended.
It was true that M. d'Hauteserre had had a fence built
at the top of the sunken road in order to estop tlie commune
from acquiring title to the lane by adverse possession.
Michu, seeing the importance that attached to the condition
of his clothing, and the plaster that he could not deny hav-
ing used, invented this rigmarole yarn to befog the issue.
If, in the affairs of justice, truth often resembles fable, fable,
also, is often very much like truth. The prosecution and
the defence both attached great importance to this circum-
stance, about which, owing to the suspicions of the prose-
cutor and the efforts of the opposing counsel to allay them,
the conflict was carried on with great animation.
On being questioned Gothard, with whom M. de Gran-
ville had doubtless been having a little private conversation,
confessed that Michu had requested him to bring him some
bags of plaster. Until then he had always had recourse to
tears the moment a question was asked him.
"Why did not one of you, jon or Gothard, take the juge
de paix and the garde champ^tre to look at the fence at the
time?" asked the public prosecutor.
"I never supposed that there was a likelihood of our
being placed on trial for our life," Michu replied.
All the accused except Gothard were made to leave the
room. When the young man was left without the moral
support of his fellow-prisoners, the president addressed him,
advising him to abandon his policy of pretended idiocy,
which deceived nobody, and urging him in his own interest
to tell the truth. None of the jurymen believed that he was
weak-minded. If he persisted in his silence he would ex-
pose himself to severe punishment, while a frank and full
confession would doubtless secure him his liberty. Gothard
cried, hesitated, shuffled. Finally he said that Michu had
asked him to bring him several bags of plaster, but that on
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 213
each occasion he had met him in front of the farmhouse.
He was asked how many bags he had brought.
"Three," be replied.
Here a discussion arose between Gothard and Michu as
to whether the number was three, counting the one that the
lad was bringing at the moment of the arrest, which would
reduce the number of bags to two, or three in addition to the