For eighteen months now he had sat on the most important Bench in the kingdom; and had once, at the desire of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, had an opportunity of forwarding the ends of a lady not less influential than the Duchess, namely, the Marquise d'Espard, but he had failed. (See the Commission in Lunacy.)

Lucien, as was told at the beginning of the Scene, to be revenged on Madame d'Espard, who aimed at depriving her husband of his liberty of action, was able to put the true facts before the Public Prosecutor and the Comte de Serizy. These two important authorities being thus won over to the Marquis d'Espard's party, his wife had barely escaped the censure of the Bench by her husband's generous intervention.

On hearing, yesterday, of Lucien's arrest, the Marquise d'Espard had sent her brother-in-law, the Chevalier d'Espard, to see Madame Camusot. Madame Camusot had set off forthwith to call on the notorious Marquise. Just before dinner, on her return home, she had called her husband aside in the bedroom.

"If you can commit that little fop Lucien de Rubempre for trial, and secure his condemnation," said she in his ear, "you will be Councillor to the Supreme Court——"

"How?"

"Madame d'Espard longs to see that poor young man guillotined. I shivered as I heard what a pretty woman's hatred can be!"

"Do not meddle in questions of the law," said Camusot.

"I! meddle!" said she. "If a third person could have heard us, he could not have guessed what we were talking about. The Marquise and I were as exquisitely hypocritical to each other as you are to me at this moment. She began by thanking me for your good offices in her suit, saying that she was grateful in spite of its having failed. She spoke of the terrible functions devolved on you by the law, 'It is fearful to have to send a man to the scaffold—but as to that man, it would be no more than justice,' and so forth. Then she lamented that such a handsome young fellow, brought to Paris by her cousin, Madame du Chatelet, should have turned out so badly. 'That,' said she, 'is what bad women like Coralie and Esther bring young men to when they are corrupt enough to share their disgraceful profits!' Next came some fine speeches about charity and religion! Madame du Chatelet had said that Lucien deserved a thousand deaths for having half killed his mother and his sister.

"Then she spoke of a vacancy in the Supreme Court—she knows the Keeper of the Seals. 'Your husband, madame, has a fine opportunity of distinguishing himself,' she said in conclusion—and that is all."

"We distinguish ourselves every day when we do our duty," said Camusot.

"You will go far if you are always the lawyer even to your wife," cried Madame Camusot. "Well, I used to think you a goose. Now I admire you."

The lawyer's lips wore one of those smiles which are as peculiar to them as dancers' smiles are to dancers.

"Madame, can I come in?" said the maid.

"What is it?" said her mistress.

"Madame, the head lady's-maid came from the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse while you were out, and she will be obliged if you would go at once to the Hotel de Cadignan."

"Keep dinner back," said the lawyer's wife, remembering that the driver of the hackney coach that had brought her home was waiting to be paid.

She put her bonnet on again, got into the coach, and in twenty minutes was at the Hotel de Cadignan. Madame Camusot was led up the private stairs, and sat alone for ten minutes in a boudoir adjoining the Duchess' bedroom. The Duchess presently appeared, splendidly dressed, for she was starting for Saint-Cloud in obedience to a Royal invitation.

"Between you and me, my dear, a few words are enough."

"Yes, Madame la Duchesse."

"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody, your husband is conducting the inquiry; I will answer for the poor boy's innocence; see that he is released within twenty-four hours.—This is not all. Some one will ask to-morrow to see Lucien in private in his cell; your husband may be present if he chooses, so long as he is not discovered. The King looks for high courage in his magistrates in the difficult position in which he will presently find himself; I will bring your husband forward, and recommend him as a man devoted to the King even at the risk of his head. Our friend Camusot will be made first a councillor, and then the President of Court somewhere or other.—Good-bye.—I am under orders, you will excuse me, I know?

"You will not only oblige the public prosecutor, who cannot give an opinion in this affair; you will save the life of a dying woman, Madame de Serizy. So you will not lack support.

"In short, you see, I put my trust in you, I need not say—you know——"

She laid a finger to her lips and disappeared.

"And I had not a chance of telling her that Madame d'Espard wants to see Lucien on the scaffold!" thought the judge's wife as she returned to her hackney cab.

She got home in such a state of anxiety that her husband, on seeing her, asked:

"What is the matter, Amelie?"

"We stand between two fires."

She told her husband of her interview with the Duchess, speaking in his ear for fear the maid should be listening at the door.

"Now, which of them has the most power?" she said in conclusion. "The Marquise was very near getting you into trouble in the silly business of the commission on her husband, and we owe everything to the Duchess.

"One made vague promises, while the other tells you you shall first be Councillor and then President.—Heaven forbid I should advise you; I will never meddle in matters of business; still, I am bound to repeat exactly what is said at Court and what goes on——"

"But, Amelie, you do not know what the Prefet of police sent me this morning, and by whom? By one of the most important agents of the superior police, the Bibi-Lupin of politics, who told me that the Government had a secret interest in this trial.—Now let us dine and go to the Varietes. We will talk all this over to-night in my private room, for I shall need your intelligence; that of a judge may not perhaps be enough——"

Nine magistrates out of ten would deny the influence of the wife over her husband in such cases; but though this may be a remarkable exception in society, it may be insisted on as true, even if improbable. The magistrate is like the priest, especially in Paris, where the best of the profession are to be found; he rarely speaks of his business in the Courts, excepting of settled cases. Not only do magistrates' wives affect to know nothing; they have enough sense of propriety to understand that it would damage their husbands if, when they are told some secret, they allowed their knowledge to be suspected.

Nevertheless, on some great occasions, when promotion depends on the decision taken, many a wife, like Amelie, has helped the lawyer in his study of a case. And, after all, these exceptions, which, of course, are easily denied, since they remain unknown, depend entirely on the way in which the struggle between two natures has worked out in home-life. Now, Madame Camusot controlled her husband completely.

When all in the house were asleep, the lawyer and his wife sat down to the desk, where the magistrate had already laid out the documents in the case.

"Here are the notes, forwarded to me, at my request, by the Prefet of police," said Camusot.

"The Abbe Carlos Herrera.

"This individual is undoubtedly the man named Jacques Collin, known as Trompe-la-Mort, who was last arrested in 1819, in the dwelling-house of a certain Madame Vauquer, who kept a common boarding-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, where he lived in concealment under the alias of Vautrin."

A marginal note in the Prefet's handwriting ran thus:

"Orders have been sent by telegraph to Bibi-Lupin, chief of the Safety department, to return forthwith, to be confronted with the prisoner, as he is personally acquainted with Jacques Collin, whom he, in fact, arrested in 1819 with the connivance of a Mademoiselle Michonneau.

"The boarders who then lived in the Maison Vauquer are still living, and may be called to establish his identity.

"The self-styled Carlos Herrera is Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre's intimate friend and adviser, and for three years past has furnished him with considerable sums, evidently obtained by dishonest means.

"This partnership, if the identity of the Spaniard with Jacques Collin can be proved, must involve the condemnation of Lucien de Rubempre.

"The sudden death of Peyrade, the police agent, is attributable to poison administered at the instigation of Jacques Collin, Rubempre, or their accomplices. The reason for this murder is the fact that justice had for a long time been on the traces of these clever criminals."

And again, on the margin, the magistrate pointed to this note written by the Prefet himself:

"This is the fact to my personal knowledge; and I also know that the Sieur Lucien de Rubempre has disgracefully tricked the Comte de Serizy and the Public Prosecutor."



"What do you say to this, Amelie?"

"It is frightful!" repled his wife. "Go on."

"The transformation of the convict Jacques Collin into a Spanish priest is the result of some crime more clever than that by which Coignard made himself Comte de Sainte-Helene."

"Lucien de Rubempre.

"Lucien Chardon, son of an apothecary at Angouleme—his mother a Demoiselle de Rubempre—bears the name of Rubempre in virtue of a royal patent. This was granted by the request of Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Monsieur le Comte de Serizy.

"This young man came to Paris in 182... without any means of subsistence, following Madame la Comtesse Sixte du Chatelet, then Madame de Bargeton, a cousin of Madame d'Espard's.

"He was ungrateful to Madame de Bargeton, and cohabited with a girl named Coralie, an actress at the Gymnase, now dead, who left Monsieur Camusot, a silk mercer in the Rue des Bourdonnais, to live with Rubempre.

"Ere long, having sunk into poverty through the insufficiency of the money allowed him by this actress, he seriously compromised his brother-in-law, a highly respected printer of Angouleme, by giving forged bills, for which David Sechard was arrested, during a short visit paid to Angouleme by Lucien. In consequence of this affair Rubempre fled, but suddenly reappeared in Paris with the Abbe Carlos Herrera.

"Though having no visible means of subsistence, the said Lucien de Rubempre spent on an average three hundred thousand francs during the three years of his second residence in Paris, and can only have obtained the money from the self-styled Abbe Carlos Herrera —but how did he come by it?

"He has recently laid out above a million francs in repurchasing the Rubempre estates to fulfil the conditions on which he was to be allowed to marry Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu. This marriage has been broken off in consequence of inquiries made by the Grandlieu family, the said Lucien having told them that he had obtained the money from his brother-in-law and his sister; but the information obtained, more especially by Monsieur Derville, attorney-at-law, proves that not only were that worthy couple ignorant of his having made this purchase, but that they believed the said Lucien to be deeply in debt.

"Moreover, the property inherited by the Sechards consists of houses; and the ready money, by their affidavit, amounted to about two hundred thousand francs.

"Lucien was secretly cohabiting with Esther Gobseck; hence there can be no doubt that all the lavish gifts of the Baron de Nucingen, the girl's protector, were handed over to the said Lucien.

"Lucien and his companion, the convict, have succeeded in keeping their footing in the face of the world longer than Coignard did, deriving their income from the prostitution of the said Esther, formerly on the register of the town."



Though these notes are to a great extent a repetition of the story already told, it was necessary to reproduce them to show the part played by the police in Paris. As has already been seen from the note on Peyrade, the police has summaries, almost invariably correct, concerning every family or individual whose life is under suspicion, or whose actions are of a doubtful character. It knows every circumstance of their delinquencies. This universal register and account of consciences is as accurately kept as the register of the Bank of France and its accounts of fortunes. Just as the Bank notes the slightest delay in payment, gauges every credit, takes stock of every capitalist, and watches their proceedings, so does the police weigh and measure the honesty of each citizen. With it, as in a Court of Law, innocence has nothing to fear; it has no hold on anything but crime.

However high the rank of a family, it cannot evade this social providence.

And its discretion is equal to the extent of its power. This vast mass of written evidence compiled by the police—reports, notes, and summaries—an ocean of information, sleeps undisturbed, as deep and calm as the sea. Some accident occurs, some crime or misdemeanor becomes aggressive,—then the law refers to the police, and immediately, if any documents bear on the suspected criminal, the judge is informed. These records, an analysis of his antecedents, are merely side-lights, and unknown beyond the walls of the Palais de Justice. No legal use can be made of them; Justice is informed by them, and takes advantage of them; but that is all. These documents form, as it were, the inner lining of the tissue of crimes, their first cause, which is hardly ever made public. No jury would accept it; and the whole country would rise up in wrath if excerpts from those documents came out in the trial at the Assizes. In fact, it is the truth which is doomed to remain in the well, as it is everywhere and at all times. There is not a magistrate who, after twelve years' experience in Paris, is not fully aware that the Assize Court and the police authorities keep the secret of half these squalid atrocities, or who does not admit that half the crimes that are committed are never punished by the law.

If the public could know how reserved the employes of the police are—who do not forget—they would reverence these honest men as much as they do Cheverus. The police is supposed to be astute, Machiavellian; it is, in fact most benign. But it hears every passion in its paroxysms, it listens to every kind of treachery, and keeps notes of all. The police is terrible on one side only. What it does for justice it does no less for political interests; but in these it is as ruthless and as one-sided as the fires of the Inquisition.

"Put this aside," said the lawyer, replacing the notes in their cover; "this is a secret between the police and the law. The judge will estimate its value, but Monsieur and Madame Camusot must know nothing of it."

"As if I needed telling that!" said his wife.

"Lucien is guilty," he went on; "but of what?"

"A man who is the favorite of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of the Comtesse de Serizy, and loved by Clotilde de Grandlieu, is not guilty," said Amelie. "The other must be answerable for everything."

"But Lucien is his accomplice," cried Camusot.

"Take my advice," said Amelie. "Restore this priest to the diplomatic career he so greatly adorns, exculpate this little wretch, and find some other criminal——"

"How you run on!" said the magistrate with a smile. "Women go to the point, plunging through the law as birds fly through the air, and find nothing to stop them."

"But," said Amelie, "whether he is a diplomate or a convict, the Abbe Carlos will find some one to get him out of the scrape."

"I am only a considering cap; you are the brain," said Camusot.

"Well, the sitting is closed; give your Melie a kiss; it is one o'clock."

And Madame Camusot went to bed, leaving her husband to arrange his papers and his ideas in preparation for the task of examining the two prisoners next morning.



And thus, while the prison vans were conveying Jacques Collin and Lucien to the Conciergerie, the examining judge, having breakfasted, was making his way across Paris on foot, after the unpretentious fashion of Parisian magistrates, to go to his chambers, where all the documents in the case were laid ready for him.

This was the way of it: Every examining judge has a head-clerk, a sort of sworn legal secretary—a race that perpetuates itself without any premiums or encouragement, producing a number of excellent souls in whom secrecy is natural and incorruptible. From the origin of the Parlement to the present day, no case has ever been known at the Palais de Justice of any gossip or indiscretion on the part of a clerk bound to the Courts of Inquiry. Gentil sold the release given by Louise de Savoie to Semblancay; a War Office clerk sold the plan of the Russian campaign to Czernitchef; and these traitors were more or less rich. The prospect of a post in the Palais and professional conscientiousness are enough to make a judge's clerk a successful rival of the tomb—for the tomb has betrayed many secrets since chemistry has made such progress.

This official is, in fact, the magistrate's pen. It will be understood by many readers that a man may gladly be the shaft of a machine, while they wonder why he is content to remain a bolt; still a bolt is content—perhaps the machinery terrifies him.

Camusot's clerk, a young man of two-and-twenty, named Coquart, had come in the morning to fetch all the documents and the judge's notes, and laid everything ready in his chambers, while the lawyer himself was wandering along the quays, looking at the curiosities in the shops, and wondering within himself:—

"How on earth am I to set to work with such a clever rascal as this Jacques Collin, supposing it is he? The head of the Safety will know him. I must look as if I knew what I was about, if only for the sake of the police! I see so many insuperable difficulties, that the best plan would be to enlighten the Marquise and the Duchess by showing them the notes of the police, and I should avenge my father, from whom Lucien stole Coralie.—If I can unveil these scoundrels, my skill will be loudly proclaimed, and Lucien will soon be thrown over by his friends.—Well, well, the examination will settle all that."

He turned into a curiosity shop, tempted by a Boule clock.

"Not to be false to my conscience, and yet to oblige two great ladies—that will be a triumph of skill," thought he. "What, do you collect coins too, monsieur?" said Camusot to the Public Prosecutor, whom he found in the shop.

"It is a taste dear to all dispensers of justice," said the Comte de Granville, laughing. "They look at the reverse side of every medal."

And after looking about the shop for some minutes, as if continuing his search, he accompanied Camusot on his way down the quay without it ever occurring to Camusot that anything but chance had brought them together.

"You are examining Monsieur de Rubempre this morning," said the Public Prosecutor. "Poor fellow—I liked him."

"There are several charges against him," said Camusot.

"Yes, I saw the police papers; but some of the information came from an agent who is independent of the Prefet, the notorious Corentin, who had caused the death of more innocent men than you will ever send guilty men to the scaffold, and——But that rascal is out of your reach.—Without trying to influence the conscience of such a magistrate as you are, I may point out to you that if you could be perfectly sure that Lucien was ignorant of the contents of that woman's will, it would be self-evident that he had no interest in her death, for she gave him enormous sums of money."

"We can prove his absence at the time when this Esther was poisoned," said Camusot. "He was at Fontainebleau, on the watch for Mademoiselle de Grandlieu and the Duchesse de Lenoncourt."

"And he still cherished such hopes of marrying Mademoiselle de Grandlieu," said the Public Prosecutor—"I have it from the Duchesse de Grandlieu herself—that it is inconceivable that such a clever young fellow should compromise his chances by a perfectly aimless crime."

"Yes," said Camusot, "especially if Esther gave him all she got."

"Derville and Nucingen both say that she died in ignorance of the inheritance she had long since come into," added Granville.

"But then what do you suppose is the meaning of it all?" asked Camusot. "For there is something at the bottom of it."

"A crime committed by some servant," said the Public Prosecutor.

"Unfortunately," remarked Camusot, "it would be quite like Jacques Collin—for the Spanish priest is certainly none other than that escaped convict—to have taken possession of the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs derived from the sale of the certificate of shares given to Esther by Nucingen."

"Weigh everything with care, my dear Camusot. Be prudent. The Abbe Carlos Herrera has diplomatic connections; still, an envoy who had committed a crime would not be sheltered by his position. Is he or is he not the Abbe Carlos Herrera? That is the important question."

And Monsieur de Granville bowed, and turned away, as requiring no answer.

"So he too wants to save Lucien!" thought Camusot, going on by the Quai des Lunettes, while the Public Prosecutor entered the Palais through the Cour de Harlay.

On reaching the courtyard of the Conciergerie, Camusot went to the Governor's room and led him into the middle of the pavement, where no one could overhear them.

"My dear sir, do me the favor of going to La Force, and inquiring of your colleague there whether he happens at this moment to have there any convicts who were on the hulks at Toulon between 1810 and 1815; or have you any imprisoned here? We will transfer those of La Force here for a few days, and you will let me know whether this so-called Spanish priest is known to them as Jacques Collin, otherwise Trompe-la-Mort."

"Very good, Monsieur Camusot.—But Bibi-Lupin is come..."

"What, already?" said the judge.

"He was at Melun. He was told that Trompe-la-Mort had to be identified, and he smiled with joy. He awaits your orders."

"Send him to me."

The Governor was then able to lay before Monsieur Camusot Jacques Collin's request, and he described the man's deplorable condition.

"I intended to examine him first," replied the magistrate, "but not on account of his health. I received a note this morning from the Governor of La Force. Well, this rascal, who described himself to you as having been dying for twenty-four hours past, slept so soundly that they went into his cell there, with the doctor for whom the Governor had sent, without his hearing them; the doctor did not even feel his pulse, he left him to sleep—which proves that his conscience is as tough as his health. I shall accept this feigned illness only so far as it may enable me to study my man," added Monsieur Camusot, smiling.

"We live to learn every day with these various grades of prisoners," said the Governor of the prison.

The Prefecture of police adjoins the Conciergerie, and the magistrates, like the Governor, knowing all the subterranean passages, can get to and fro with the greatest rapidity. This explains the miraculous ease with which information can be conveyed, during the sitting of the Courts, to the officials and the presidents of the Assize Courts. And by the time Monsieur Camusot had reached the top of the stairs leading to his chambers, Bibi-Lupin was there too, having come by the Salle des Pas-Perdus.

"What zeal!" said Camusot, with a smile.

"Ah, well, you see if it is he," replied the man, "you will see great fun in the prison-yard if by chance there are any old stagers here."

"Why?"

"Trompe-la-Mort sneaked their chips, and I know that they have vowed to be the death of him."

They were the convicts whose money, intrusted to Trompe-la-Mort, had all been made away with by him for Lucien, as has been told.

"Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his former arrest?"

"Give me two summonses of witnesses and I will find you some to-day."

"Coquart," said the lawyer, as he took off his gloves, and placed his hat and stick in a corner, "fill up two summonses by monsieur's directions."

He looked at himself in the glass over the chimney shelf, where stood, in the place of a clock, a basin and jug. On one side was a bottle of water and a glass, on the other a lamp. He rang the bell; his usher came in a few minutes after.

"Is anybody here for me yet?" he asked the man, whose business it was to receive the witnesses, to verify their summons, and to set them in the order of their arrival.

"Yes, sir."

"Take their names, and bring me the list."

The examining judges, to save time, are often obliged to carry on several inquiries at once. Hence the long waiting inflicted on the witnesses, who have seats in the ushers' hall, where the judges' bells are constantly ringing.

"And then," Camusot went on, "bring up the Abbe Carlos Herrera."

"Ah, ha! I was told that he was a priest in Spanish. Pooh! It is a new edition of Collet, Monsieur Camusot," said the head of the Safety department.

"There is nothing new!" replied Camusot.

And he signed the two formidable documents which alarm everybody, even the most innocent witnesses, whom the law thus requires to appear, under severe penalties in case of failure.



By this time Jacques Collin had, about half an hour since, finished his deep meditations, and was armed for the fray. Nothing is more perfectly characteristic of this type of the mob in rebellion against the law than the few words he had written on the greasy scraps of paper.

The sense of the first—for it was written in the language, the very slang of slang, agreed upon by Asie and himself, a cipher of words—was as follows:—

"Go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse or Madame de Serizy: one of them must see Lucien before he is examined, and give him the enclosed paper to read. Then find Europe and Paccard; those two thieves must be at my orders, and ready to play any part I may set them.

"Go to Rastignac; tell him, from the man he met at the opera-ball, to come and swear that the Abbe Carlos Herrera has no resemblance to Jacques Collin who was apprehended at Vauquer's. Do the same with Dr. Bianchon, and get Lucien's two women to work to the same end."

On the enclosed fragment were these words in good French:

"Lucien, confess nothing about me. I am the Abbe Carlos Herrera. Not only will this be your exculpation; but, if you do not lose your head, you will have seven millions and your honor cleared."

These two bits of paper, gummed on the side of the writing so as to look like one piece, were then rolled tightly, with a dexterity peculiar to men who have dreamed of getting free from the hulks. The whole thing assumed the shape and consistency of a ball of dirty rubbish, about as big as the sealing-wax heads which thrifty women stick on the head of a large needle when the eye is broken.

"If I am examined first, we are saved; if it is the boy, all is lost," said he to himself while he waited.

His plight was so sore that the strong man's face was wet with white sweat. Indeed, this wonderful man saw as clearly in his sphere of crime as Moliere did in his sphere of dramatic poetry, or Cuvier in that of extinct organisms. Genius of whatever kind is intuition. Below this highest manifestation other remarkable achievements may be due to talent. This is what divides men of the first rank from those of the second.

Crime has its men of genius. Jacques Collin, driven to bay, had hit on the same notion as Madame Camusot's ambition and Madame de Serizy's passion, suddenly revived by the shock of the dreadful disaster which was overwhelming Lucien. This was the supreme effort of human intellect directed against the steel armor of Justice.

On hearing the rasping of the heavy locks and bolts of his door, Jacques Collin resumed his mask of a dying man; he was helped in this by the intoxicating joy that he felt at the sound of the warder's shoes in the passage. He had no idea how Asie would get near him; but he relied on meeting her on the way, especially after her promise given in the Saint-Jean gateway.

After that fortunate achievement she had gone on to the Place de Greve.

Till 1830 the name of La Greve (the Strand) had a meaning that is now lost. Every part of the river-shore from the Pont d'Arcole to the Pont Louis-Philippe was then as nature had made it, excepting the paved way which was at the top of the bank. When the river was in flood a boat could pass close under the houses and at the end of the streets running down to the river. On the quay the footpath was for the most part raised with a few steps; and when the river was up to the houses, vehicles had to pass along the horrible Rue de la Mortellerie, which has now been completely removed to make room for enlarging the Hotel de Ville.

So the sham costermonger could easily and quickly run her truck down to the bottom of the quay, and hide it there till the real owner—who was, in fact, drinking the price of her wares, sold bodily to Asie, in one of the abominable taverns in the Rue de la Mortellerie—should return to claim it. At that time the Quai Pelletier was being extended, the entrance to the works was guarded by a crippled soldier, and the barrow would be quite safe in his keeping.

Asie then jumped into a hackney cab on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, and said to the driver, "To the Temple, and look sharp, I'll tip you well."

A woman dressed like Asie could disappear, without any questions being asked, in the huge market-place, where all the rags in Paris are gathered together, where a thousand costermongers wander round, and two hundred old-clothes sellers are chaffering.

The two prisoners had hardly been locked up when she was dressing herself in a low, damp entresol over one of those foul shops where remnants are sold, pieces stolen by tailors and dressmakers—an establishment kept by an old maid known as La Romette, from her Christian name Jeromette. La Romette was to the "purchasers of wardrobes" what these women are to the better class of so-called ladies in difficulties—Madame la Ressource, that is to say, money-lenders at a hundred per cent.

"Now, child," said Asie, "I have got to be figged out. I must be a Baroness of the Faubourg Saint-Germain at the very least. And sharp's the word, for my feet are in hot oil. You know what gowns suit me. Hand up the rouge-pot, find me some first-class bits of lace, and the swaggerest jewelry you can pick out.—Send the girl to call a coach, and have it brought to the back door."

"Yes, madame," the woman replied very humbly, and with the eagerness of a maid waiting on her mistress.

If there had been any one to witness the scene, he would have understood that the woman known as Asie was at home here.

"I have had some diamonds offered me," said la Romette as she dressed Asie's head.

"Stolen?"

"I should think so."

"Well, then, however cheap they may be, we must do without 'em. We must fight shy of the beak for a long time to come."

It will now be understood how Asie contrived to be in the Salle des Pas-Perdus of the Palais de Justice with a summons in her hand, asking her way along the passages and stairs leading to the examining judge's chambers, and inquiring for Monsieur Camusot, about a quarter of an hour before that gentleman's arrival.

Asie was not recognizable. After washing off her "make-up" as an old woman, like an actress, she applied rouge and pearl powder, and covered her head with a well-made fair wig. Dressed exactly as a lady of the Faubourg Saint-Germain might be if in search of a dog she had lost, she looked about forty, for she shrouded her features under a splendid black lace veil. A pair of stays, severely laced, disguised her cook's figure. With very good gloves and a rather large bustle, she exhaled the perfume of powder a la Marechale. Playing with a bag mounted in gold, she divided her attention between the walls of the building, where she found herself evidently for the first time, and the string by which she led a dainty little spaniel. Such a dowager could not fail to attract the notice of the black-robed natives of the Salle des Pas-Perdus.

Besides the briefless lawyers who sweep this hall with their gowns, and speak of the leading advocates by their Christian names, as fine gentlemen address each other, to produce the impression that they are of the aristocracy of the law, patient youths are often to be seen, hangers-on of the attorneys, waiting, waiting, in hope of a case put down for the end of the day, which they may be so lucky as to be called to plead if the advocates retained for the earlier cases should not come out in time.

A very curious study would be that of the differences between these various black gowns, pacing the immense hall in threes, or sometimes in fours, their persistent talk filling the place with a loud, echoing hum—a hall well named indeed, for this slow walk exhausts the lawyers as much as the waste of words. But such a study has its place in the volumes destined to reveal the life of Paris pleaders.

Asie had counted on the presence of these youths; she laughed in her sleeve at some of the pleasantries she overheard, and finally succeeded in attracting the attention of Massol, a young lawyer whose time was more taken up by the Police Gazette than by clients, and who came up with a laugh to place himself at the service of a woman so elegantly scented and so handsomely dressed.

Asie put on a little, thin voice to explain to this obliging gentleman that she appeared in answer to a summons from a judge named Camusot.

"Oh! in the Rubempre case?"

So the affair had its name already.

"Oh, it is not my affair. It is my maid's, a girl named Europe, who was with me twenty-four hours, and who fled when she saw my servant bring in a piece of stamped paper."

Then, like any old woman who spends her life gossiping in the chimney-corner, prompted by Massol, she poured out the story of her woes with her first husband, one of the three Directors of the land revenue. She consulted the young lawyer as to whether she would do well to enter on a lawsuit with her son-in-law, the Comte de Gross-Narp, who made her daughter very miserable, and whether the law allowed her to dispose of her fortune.

In spite of all his efforts, Massol could not be sure whether the summons were addressed to the mistress or the maid. At the first moment he had only glanced at this legal document of the most familiar aspect; for, to save time, it is printed, and the magistrates' clerks have only to fill in the blanks left for the names and addresses of the witnesses, the hour for which they are called, and so forth.

Asie made him tell her all about the Palais, which she knew more intimately than the lawyer did. Finally, she inquired at what hour Monsieur Camusot would arrive.

"Well, the examining judges generally are here by about ten o'clock."

"It is now a quarter to ten," said she, looking at a pretty little watch, a perfect gem of goldsmith's work, which made Massol say to himself:

"Where the devil will Fortune make herself at home next!"

At this moment Asie had come to the dark hall looking out on the yard of the Conciergerie, where the ushers wait. On seeing the gate through the window, she exclaimed:

"What are those high walls?"

"That is the Conciergerie."

"Oh! so that is the Conciergerie where our poor queen——Oh! I should so like to see her cell!"

"Impossible, Madame la Baronne," replied the young lawyer, on whose arm the dowager was now leaning. "A permit is indispensable, and very difficult to procure."

"I have been told," she went on, "that Louis XVIII. himself composed the inscription that is to be seen in Marie-Antoinette's cell."

"Yes, Madame la Baronne."

"How much I should like to know Latin that I might study the words of that inscription!" said she. "Do you think that Monsieur Camusot could give me a permit?"

"That is not in his power; but he could take you there."

"But his business——" objected she.

"Oh!" said Massol, "prisoners under suspicion can wait."

"To be sure," said she artlessly, "they are under suspicion.—But I know Monsieur de Granville, your public prosecutor——"

This hint had a magical effect on the ushers and the young lawyer.

"Ah, you know Monsieur de Granville?" said Massol, who was inclined to ask the client thus sent to him by chance her name and address.

"I often see him at my friend Monsieur de Serizy's house. Madame de Serizy is a connection of mine through the Ronquerolles."

"Well, if Madame wishes to go down to the Conciergerie," said an usher, "she——"

"Yes," said Massol.

So the Baroness and the lawyer were allowed to pass, and they presently found themselves in the little guard-room at the top of the stairs leading to the "mousetrap," a spot well known to Asie, forming, as has been said, a post of observation between those cells and the Court of the Sixth Chamber, through which everybody is obliged to pass.

"Will you ask if Monsieur Camusot is come yet?" said she, seeing some gendarmes playing cards.

"Yes, madame, he has just come up from the 'mousetrap.'"

"The mousetrap!" said she. "What is that?—Oh! how stupid of me not to have gone straight to the Comte de Granville.—But I have not time now. Pray take me to speak to Monsieur Camusot before he is otherwise engaged."

"Oh, you have plenty of time for seeing Monsieur Camusot," said Massol. "If you send him in your card, he will spare you the discomfort of waiting in the ante-room with the witnesses.—We can be civil here to ladies like you.—You have a card about you?"

At this instant Asie and her lawyer were exactly in front of the window of the guardroom whence the gendarmes could observe the gate of the Conciergerie. The gendarmes, brought up to respect the defenders of the widow and the orphan, were aware too of the prerogative of the gown, and for a few minutes allowed the Baroness to remain there escorted by a pleader. Asie listened to the terrible tales which a young lawyer is ready to tell about that prison-gate. She would not believe that those who were condemned to death were prepared for the scaffold behind those bars; but the sergeant-at-arms assured her it was so.

"How much I should like to see it done!" cried she.

And there she remained, prattling to the lawyer and the sergeant, till she saw Jacques Collin come out supported by two gendarmes, and preceded by Monsieur Camusot's clerk.

"Ah, there is a chaplain no doubt going to prepare a poor wretch——"

"Not at all, Madame la Baronne," said the gendarme. "He is a prisoner coming to be examined."

"What is he accused of?"

"He is concerned in this poisoning case."

"Oh! I should like to see him."

"You cannot stay here," said the sergeant, "for he is under close arrest, and he must pass through here. You see, madame, that door leads to the stairs——"

"Oh! thank you!" cried the Baroness, making for the door, to rush down the stairs, where she at once shrieked out, "Oh! where am I?"

This cry reached the ear of Jacques Collin, who was thus prepared to see her. The sergeant flew after Madame la Baronne, seized her by the middle, and lifted her back like a feather into the midst of a group of five gendarmes, who started up as one man; for in that guardroom everything is regarded as suspicious. The proceeding was arbitrary, but the arbitrariness was necessary. The young lawyer himself had cried out twice, "Madame! madame!" in his horror, so much did he fear finding himself in the wrong.

The Abbe Carlos Herrera, half fainting, sank on a chair in the guardroom.

"Poor man!" said the Baroness. "Can he be a criminal?"

The words, though spoken low to the young advocate, could be heard by all, for the silence of death reigned in that terrible guardroom. Certain privileged persons are sometimes allowed to see famous criminals on their way through this room or through the passages, so that the clerk and the gendarmes who had charge of the Abbe Carlos made no remark. Also, in consequence of the devoted zeal of the sergeant who had snatched up the Baroness to hinder any communication between the prisoner and the visitors, there was a considerable space between them.

"Let us go on," said Jacques Collin, making an effort to rise.

At the same moment the little ball rolled out of his sleeve, and the spot where it fell was noted by the Baroness, who could look about her freely from under her veil. The little pellet, being damp and sticky, did not roll; for such trivial details, apparently unimportant, had all been duly considered by Jacques Collin to insure success.

When the prisoner had been led up the higher part of the steps, Asie very unaffectedly dropped her bag and picked it up again; but in stooping she seized the pellet which had escaped notice, its color being exactly like that of the dust and mud on the floor.

"Oh dear!" cried she, "it goes to my heart.—He is dying——"

"Or seems to be," replied the sergeant.

"Monsieur," said Asie to the lawyer, "take me at once to Monsieur Camusot; I have come about this case; and he might be very glad to see me before examining that poor priest."

The lawyer and the Baroness left the guardroom, with its greasy, fuliginous walls; but as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, Asie exclaimed:

"Oh, and my dog! My poor little dog!" and she rushed off like a mad creature down the Salle des Pas-Perdus, asking every one where her dog was. She got to the corridor beyond (la Galerie Marchande, or Merchant's Hall, as it is called), and flew to the staircase, saying, "There he is!"

These stairs lead to the Cour de Harlay, through which Asie, having played out the farce, passed out and took a hackney cab on the Quai des Orfevres, where there is a stand; thus she vanished with the summons requiring "Europe" to appear, her real name being unknown to the police and the lawyers.

"Rue Neuve-Saint-Marc," cried she to the driver.



Asie could depend on the absolute secrecy of an old-clothes purchaser, known as Madame Nourrisson, who also called herself Madame de Saint-Esteve; and who would lend Asie not merely her personality, but her shop at need, for it was there that Nucingen had bargained for the surrender of Esther. Asie was quite at home there, for she had a bedroom in Madame Nourrisson's establishment.

She paid the driver, and went up to her room, nodding to Madame Nourrisson in a way to make her understand that she had not time to say two words to her.

As soon as she was safe from observation, Asie unwrapped the papers with the care of a savant unrolling a palimpsest. After reading the instructions, she thought it wise to copy the lines intended for Lucien on a sheet of letter-paper; then she went down to Madame Nourrisson, to whom she talked while a little shop-girl went to fetch a cab from the Boulevard des Italiens. She thus extracted the addresses of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and of Madame de Serizy, which were known to Madame Nourrisson by her dealings with their maids.

All this running about and elaborate business took up more than two hours. Madame la Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, who lived at the top of the Faubourg Saint-Honore, kept Madame de Saint-Esteve waiting an hour, although the lady's-maid, after knocking at the boudoir door, had handed in to her mistress a card with Madame de Saint-Esteve's name, on which Asie had written, "Called about pressing business concerning Lucien."

Her first glance at the Duchess' face showed her how till-timed her visit must be; she apologized for disturbing Madame la Duchesse when she was resting, on the plea of the danger in which Lucien stood.

"Who are you?" asked the Duchess, without any pretence at politeness, as she looked at Asie from head to foot; for Asie, though she might be taken for a Baroness by Maitre Massol in the Salle des Pas-Perdus, when she stood on the carpet in the boudoir of the Hotel de Cadignan, looked like a splash of mud on a white satin gown.

"I am a dealer in cast-off clothes, Madame la Duchesse; for in such matters every lady applies to women whose business rests on a basis of perfect secrecy. I have never betrayed anybody, though God knows how many great ladies have intrusted their diamonds to me by the month while wearing false jewels made to imitate them exactly."

"You have some other name?" said the Duchess, smiling at a reminiscence recalled to her by this reply.

"Yes, Madame la Duchesse, I am Madame de Saint-Esteve on great occasions, but in the trade I am Madame Nourrisson."

"Well, well," said the Duchess in an altered tone.

"I am able to be of great service," Asie went on, "for we hear the husbands' secrets as well as the wives'. I have done many little jobs for Monsieur de Marsay, whom Madame la Duchesse——"

"That will do, that will do!" cried the Duchess. "What about Lucien?"

"If you wish to save him, madame, you must have courage enough to lose no time in dressing. But, indeed, Madame la Duchesse, you could not look more charming than you do at this moment. You are sweet enough to charm anybody, take an old woman's word for it! In short, madame, do not wait for your carriage, but get into my hackney coach. Come to Madame de Serizy's if you hope to avert worse misfortunes than the death of that cherub——"

"Go on, I will follow you," said the Duchess after a moment's hesitation. "Between us we may give Leontine some courage..."

Notwithstanding the really demoniacal activity of this Dorine of the hulks, the clock was striking two when she and the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse went into the Comtesse de Serizy's house in the Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin. Once there, thanks to the Duchess, not an instant was lost. The two women were at once shown up to the Countess, whom they found reclining on a couch in a miniature chalet, surrounded by a garden fragrant with the rarest flowers.

"That is well," said Asie, looking about her. "No one can overhear us."

"Oh! my dear, I am half dead! Tell me, Diane, what have you done?" cried the Duchess, starting up like a fawn, and, seizing the Duchess by the shoulders, she melted into tears.

"Come, come, Leontine; there are occasions when women like us must not cry, but act," said the Duchess, forcing the Countess to sit down on the sofa by her side.

Asie studied the Countess' face with the scrutiny peculiar to those old hands, which pierces to the soul of a woman as certainly as a surgeon's instrument probes a wound!—the sorrow that engraves ineradicable lines on the heart and on the features. She was dressed without the least touch of vanity. She was now forty-five, and her printed muslin wrapper, tumbled and untidy, showed her bosom without any art or even stays! Her eyes were set in dark circles, and her mottled cheeks showed the traces of bitter tears. She wore no sash round her waist; the embroidery on her petticoat and shift was all crumpled. Her hair, knotted up under a lace cap, had not been combed for four-and-twenty hours, and showed as a thin, short plait and ragged little curls. Leontine had forgotten to put on her false hair.

"You are in love for the first time in your life?" said Asie sententiously.

Leontine then saw the woman and started with horror.

"Who is that, my dear Diane?" she asked of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse.

"Whom should I bring with me but a woman who is devoted to Lucien and willing to help us?"

Asie had hit the truth. Madame de Serizy, who was regarded as one of the most fickle of fashionable women, had had an attachment of ten years' standing for the Marquis d'Aiglemont. Since the Marquis' departure for the colonies, she had gone wild about Lucien, and had won him from the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, knowing nothing—like the Paris world generally—of Lucien's passion for Esther. In the world of fashion a recognized attachment does more to ruin a woman's reputation than ten unconfessed liaisons; how much more then two such attachments? However, as no one thought of Madame de Serizy as a responsible person, the historian cannot undertake to speak for her virtue thus doubly dog's-eared.

She was fair, of medium height, and well preserved, as a fair woman can be who is well preserved at all; that is to say, she did not look more than thirty, being slender, but not lean, with a white skin and flaxen hair; she had hands, feet, and a shape of aristocratic elegance, and was as witty as all the Ronquerolles, spiteful, therefore, to women, and good-natured to men. Her large fortune, her husband's fine position, and that of her brother, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, had protected her from the mortifications with which any other woman would have been overwhelmed. She had this great merit—that she was honest in her depravity, and confessed her worship of the manners and customs of the Regency.

Now, at forty-two this woman—who had hitherto regarded men as no more than pleasing playthings, to whom, indeed, she had, strange to say, granted much, regarding love as merely a matter of sacrifice to gain the upper hand,—this woman, on first seeing Lucien, had been seized with such a passion as the Baron de Nucingen's for Esther. She had loved, as Asie had just told her, for the first time in her life.

This postponement of youth is more common with Parisian women than might be supposed, and causes the ruin of some virtuous souls just as they are reaching the haven of forty. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was the only person in the secret of the vehement and absorbing passion, of which the joys, from the girlish suspicion of first love to the preposterous follies of fulfilment, had made Leontine half crazy and insatiable.

True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther's existence had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in a woman rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of meanness, to which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly. Indeed, for the last month the Countess would have given ten years of her life to have Lucien again for one week. At last she had even resigned herself to accept Esther as her rival, just when the news of her lover's arrest had come like the last trump on this paroxysm of devotion.

The Countess had nearly died of it. Her husband had himself nursed her in bed, fearing the betrayal of delirium, and for twenty-four hours she had been living with a knife in her heart. She said to her husband in her fever:

"Save Lucien, and I will live henceforth for you alone."

"Indeed, as Madame la Duchesse tells you, it is of no use to make your eyes like boiled gooseberries," cried the dreadful Asie, shaking the Countess by the arm. "If you want to save him, there is not a minute to lose. He is innocent—I swear it by my mother's bones!"

"Yes, yes, of course he is!" cried the Countess, looking quite kindly at the dreadful old woman.

"But," Asie went on, "if Monsieur Camusot questions him the wrong way, he can make a guilty man of him with two sentences; so, if it is in your power to get the Conciergerie opened to you, and to say a few words to him, go at once, and give him this paper.—He will be released to-morrow; I will answer for it. Now, get him out of the scrape, for you got him into it."

"I?"

"Yes, you!—You fine ladies never have a son even when you own millions. When I allowed myself the luxury of keeping boys, they always had their pockets full of gold! Their amusements amused me. It is delightful to be mother and mistress in one. Now, you—you let the men you love die of hunger without asking any questions. Esther, now, made no speeches; she gave, at the cost of perdition, soul and body, the million your Lucien was required to show, and that is what has brought him to this pass——"

"Poor girl! Did she do that! I love her!" said Leontine.

"Yes—now!" said Asie, with freezing irony.

"She was a real beauty; but now, my angel, you are better looking than she is.—And Lucien's marriage is so effectually broken off, that nothing can mend it," said the Duchess in a whisper to Leontine.

The effect of this revelation and forecast was so great on the Countess that she was well again. She passed her hand over her brow; she was young once more.

"Now, my lady, hot foot, and make haste!" said Asie, seeing the change, and guessing what had caused it.

"But," said Madame de Maufrigneuse, "if the first thing is to prevent Lucien's being examined by Monsieur Camusot, we can do that by writing two words to the judge and sending your man with it to the Palais, Leontine."

"Then come into my room," said Madame de Serizy.



This is what was taking place at the Palais while Lucien's protectresses were obeying the orders issued by Jacques Collin. The gendarmes placed the moribund prisoner on a chair facing the window in Monsieur Camusot's room; he was sitting in his place in front of his table. Coquart, pen in hand, had a little table to himself a few yards off.

The aspect of a magistrate's chambers is not a matter of indifference; and if this room had not been chosen intentionally, it must be owned that chance had favored justice. An examining judge, like a painter, requires the clear equable light of a north window, for the criminal's face is a picture which he must constantly study. Hence most magistrates place their table, as this of Camusot's was arranged, so as to sit with their back to the window and leave the face of the examinee in broad daylight. Not one of them all but, by the end of six months, has assumed an absent-minded and indifferent expression, if he does not wear spectacles, and maintains it throughout the examination.

It was a sudden change of expression in the prisoner's face, detected by these means, and caused by a sudden point-blank question, that led to the discovery of the crime committed by Castaing at the very moment when, after a long consultation with the public prosecutor, the magistrate was about to let the criminal loose on society for lack of evidence. This detail will show the least intelligent person how living, interesting, curious, and dramatically terrible is the conflict of an examination—a conflict without witnesses, but always recorded. God knows what remains on the paper of the scenes at white heat in which a look, a tone, a quiver of the features, the faintest touch of color lent by some emotion, has been fraught with danger, as though the adversaries were savages watching each other to plant a fatal stroke. A report is no more than the ashes of the fire.

"What is your real name?" Camusot asked Jacques Collin.

"Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo, and secret envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand VII."

It must here be observed that Jacques Collin spoke French like a Spanish trollop, blundering over it in such a way as to make his answers almost unintelligible, and to require them to be repeated. But Monsieur de Nucingen's German barbarisms have already weighted this Scene too much to allow of the introduction of other sentences no less difficult to read, and hindering the rapid progress of the tale.

"Then you have papers to prove your right to the dignities of which you speak?" asked Camusot.

"Yes, monsieur—my passport, a letter from his Catholic Majesty authorizing my mission.—In short, if you will but send at once to the Spanish Embassy two lines, which I will write in your presence, I shall be identified. Then, if you wish for further evidence, I will write to His Eminence the High Almoner of France, and he will immediately send his private secretary."

"And do you still pretend that you are dying?" asked the magistrate. "If you have really gone through all the sufferings you have complained of since your arrest, you ought to be dead by this time," said Camusot ironically.

"You are simply trying the courage of an innocent man and the strength of his constitution," said the prisoner mildly.

"Coquart, ring. Send for the prison doctor and an infirmary attendant.—We shall be obliged to remove your coat and proceed to verify the marks on your shoulder," Camusot went on.

"I am in your hands, monsieur."

The prisoner then inquired whether the magistrate would be kind enough to explain to him what he meant by "the marks," and why they should be sought on his shoulder. The judge was prepared for this question.

"You are suspected of being Jacques Collin, an escaped convict, whose daring shrinks at nothing, not even at sacrilege!" said Camusot promptly, his eyes fixed on those of the prisoner.

Jacques Collin gave no sign, and did not color; he remained quite calm, and assumed an air of guileless curiosity as he gazed at Camusot.

"I, monsieur? A convict? May the Order I belong to and God above forgive you for such an error. Tell me what I can do to prevent your continuing to offer such an insult to the rights of free men, to the Church, and to the King my master."

The judge made no reply to this, but explained to the Abbe that if he had been branded, a penalty at that time inflicted by law on all convicts sent to the hulks, the letters could be made to show by giving him a slap on the shoulder.

"Oh, monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "it would indeed be unfortunate if my devotion to the Royal cause should prove fatal to me."

"Explain yourself," said the judge, "that is what you are here for."

"Well, monsieur, I must have a great many scars on my back, for I was shot in the back as a traitor to my country while I was faithful to my King, by constitutionalists who left me for dead."

"You were shot, and you are alive!" said Camusot.

"I had made friends with some of the soldiers, to whom certain pious persons had sent money, so they placed me so far off that only spent balls reached me, and the men aimed at my back. This is a fact that His Excellency the Ambassador can bear witness to——"

"This devil of a man has an answer for everything! However, so much the better," thought Camusot, who assumed so much severity only to satisfy the demands of justice and of the police. "How is it that a man of your character," he went on, addressing the convict, "should have been found in the house of the Baron de Nucingen's mistress—and such a mistress, a girl who had been a common prostitute!"

"This is why I was found in a courtesan's house, monsieur," replied Jacques Collin. "But before telling you the reasons for my being there, I ought to mention that at the moment when I was just going upstairs I was seized with the first attack of my illness, and I had no time to speak to the girl. I knew of Mademoiselle Esther's intention of killing herself; and as young Lucien de Rubempre's interests were involved, and I have a particular affection for him for sacredly secret reasons, I was going to try to persuade the poor creature to give up the idea, suggested to her by despair. I meant to tell her that Lucien must certainly fail in his last attempt to win Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu; and I hoped that by telling her she had inherited seven millions of francs, I might give her courage to live.

"I am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a martyr to the secrets confided to me. By the suddenness of my illness I believe that I had been poisoned that very morning, but my strong constitution has saved me. I know that a certain agent of the political police is dogging me, and trying to entangle me in some discreditable business.

"If, at my request, you had sent for a doctor on my arrival here, you would have had ample proof of what I am telling you as to the state of my health. Believe me, monsieur, some persons far above our heads have some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some villain, so as to have a right to get rid of me. It is not all profit to serve a king; they have their meannesses. The Church alone is faultless."

It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin's countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence, for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention of Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken.

"Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre?"

"Can you not guess them? I am sixty years of age, monsieur—I implore you do not write it.—It is because—must I say it?"

"It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre's, if you tell everything," replied the judge.

"Because he is—Oh, God! he is my son," he gasped out with an effort.

And he fainted away.

"Do not write that down, Coquart," said Camusot in an undertone.

Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of "Four thieves' Vinegar."

"If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!" thought Camusot.

Coquart held the phial under the convict's nose, while the judge examined him with the keen eye of a lynx—and a magistrate.

"Take his wig off," said Camusot, after waiting till the man recovered consciousness.

Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile an expression his face would assume.

"If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself——Yes, Coquart, remove it," said Camusot to his clerk.

Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable resignation; but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous to behold in its natural aspect.

The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty. While waiting for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work to classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized in Lucien's rooms. After carrying out their functions in the Rue Saint-Georges at Mademoiselle Esther's house, the police had searched the rooms at the Quai Malaquais.

"You have your hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy," said Carlos Herrera. "But I cannot imagine why you should have almost all Lucien's papers," he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at the judge.

Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word "almost."

"Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your accomplice," said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his examinee.

"You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent as I am," replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest agitation.

"We shall see. We have not as yet established your identity," Camusot observed, surprised at the prisoner's indifference. "If you are really Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be completely altered."

"To be sure, she became Madame Chardon—Mademoiselle de Rubempre!" murmured Carlos. "Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life."

He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips seemed to be uttering a fervent prayer.

"But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he was, the companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all the crimes of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably true."

Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very cleverly delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words "knew that he was" and "escaped convict" was to lift his hands to heaven with a gesture of noble and dignified sorrow.

"Monsieur l'Abbe," Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, "if you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged to do in the interests of justice and truth."

Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer's very voice as he spoke the words "Monsieur l'Abbe." The man's face never changed; Camusot had looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in Machiavellian dissimulation.

"I am accustomed to diplomacy, and I belong to an Order of very austere discipline," replied Jacques Collin, with apostolic mildness. "I understand everything, and am inured to suffering. I should be free by this time if you had discovered in my room the hiding-place where I keep my papers—for I see you have none but unimportant documents."

This was a finishing stroke to Camusot: Jacques Collin by his air of ease and simplicity had counteracted all the suspicions to which his appearance, unwigged, had given rise.

"Where are these papers?"

"I will tell you exactly if you will get a secretary from the Spanish Embassy to accompany your messenger. He will take them and be answerable to you for the documents, for it is to me a matter of confidential duty—diplomatic secrets which would compromise his late Majesty Louis XVIII—Indeed, monsieur, it would be better——However, you are a magistrate—and, after all, the Ambassador, to whom I refer the whole question, must decide."

At this juncture the usher announced the arrival of the doctor and the infirmary attendant, who came in.

"Good-morning, Monsieur Lebrun," said Camusot to the doctor. "I have sent for you to examine the state of health of this prisoner under suspicion. He says he had been poisoned and at the point of death since the day before yesterday; see if there is any risk in undressing him to look for the brand."

Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin's hand, felt his pulse, asked to look at his tongue, and scrutinized him steadily. This inspection lasted about ten minutes.

"The prisoner has been suffering severely," said the medical officer, "but at this moment he is amazingly strong——"

"That spurious energy, monsieur, is due to nervous excitement caused by my strange position," said Jacques Collin, with the dignity of a bishop.

"That is possible," said Monsieur Lebrun.

At a sign from Camusot the prisoner was stripped of everything but his trousers, even of his shirt, and the spectators might admire the hairy torso of a Cyclops. It was that of the Farnese Hercules at Naples in its colossal exaggeration.

"For what does nature intend a man of this build?" said Lebrun to the judge.

The usher brought in the ebony staff, which from time immemorial has been the insignia of his office, and is called his rod; he struck it several times over the place where the executioner had branded the fatal letters. Seventeen spots appeared, irregularly distributed, but the most careful scrutiny could not recognize the shape of any letters. The usher indeed pointed out that the top bar of the letter T was shown by two spots, with an interval between of the length of that bar between the two points at each end of it, and there was another spot where the bottom of the T should be.

"Still that is quite uncertain," said Camusot, seeing doubt in the expression of the prison doctor's countenance.

Carlos begged them to make the same experiment on the other shoulder and the middle of his back. About fifteen more such scars appeared, which, at the Spaniard's request, the doctor made a note of; and he pronounced that the man's back had been so extensively seamed by wounds that the brand would not show even if it had been made by the executioner.

An office-clerk now came in from the Prefecture, and handed a note to Monsieur Camusot, requesting an answer. After reading it the lawyer went to speak to Coquart, but in such a low voice that no one could catch a word. Only, by a glance from Camusot, Jacques Collin could guess that some information concerning him had been sent by the Prefet of Police.

"That friend of Peyrade's is still at my heels," thought Jacques Collin. "If only I knew him, I would get rid of him as I did of Contenson. If only I could see Asie once more!"

After signing a paper written by Coquart, the judge put it into an envelope and handed it to the clerk of the Delegate's office.

This is an indispensable auxiliary to justice. It is under the direction of a police commissioner, and consists of peace-officers who, with the assistance of the police commissioners of each district, carry into effect orders for searching the houses or apprehending the persons of those who are suspected of complicity in crimes and felonies. These functionaries in authority save the examining magistrates a great deal of very precious time.

At a sign from the judge the prisoner was dressed by Monsieur Lebrun and the attendant, who then withdrew with the usher. Camusot sat down at his table and played with his pen.

"You have an aunt," he suddenly said to Jacques Collin.

"An aunt?" echoed Don Carlos Herrera with amazement. "Why, monsieur, I have no relations. I am the unacknowledged son of the late Duke of Ossuna."

But to himself he said, "They are burning"—an allusion to the game of hot cockles, which is indeed a childlike symbol of the dreadful struggle between justice and the criminal.

"Pooh!" said Camusot. "You still have an aunt living, Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin, whom you placed in Esther's service under the eccentric name of Asie."

Jacques Collin shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that was in perfect harmony with the cool curiosity he gave throughout to the judge's words, while Camusot studied him with cunning attention.

"Take care," said Camusot; "listen to me."

"I am listening, sir."

"You aunt is a wardrobe dealer at the Temple; her business is managed by a demoiselle Paccard, the sister of a convict—herself a very good girl, known as la Romette. Justice is on the traces of your aunt, and in a few hours we shall have decisive evidence. The woman is wholly devoted to you——"

"Pray go on, Monsieur le Juge," said Collin coolly, in answer to a pause; "I am listening to you."

"Your aunt, who is about five years older than you are, was formerly Marat's mistress—of odious memory. From that blood-stained source she derived the little fortune she possesses.

"From information I have received she must be a very clever receiver of stolen goods, for no proofs have yet been found to commit her on. After Marat's death she seems, from the notes I have here, to have lived with a chemist who was condemned to death in the year XII. for issuing false coin. She was called as witness in the case. It was from this intimacy that she derived her knowledge of poisons.

"In 1812 and in 1816 she spent two years in prison for placing girls under age upon the streets.

"You were already convicted of forgery; you had left the banking house where your aunt had been able to place you as clerk, thanks to the education you had had, and the favor enjoyed by your aunt with certain persons for whose debaucheries she supplied victims.

"All this, prisoner, is not much like the dignity of the Dukes d'Ossuna.

"Do you persist in your denial?"

Jacques Collin sat listening to Monsieur Camusot, and thinking of his happy childhood at the College of the Oratorians, where he had been brought up, a meditation which lent him a truly amazed look. And in spite of his skill as a practised examiner, Camusot could bring no sort of expression to those placid features.

"If you have accurately recorded the account of myself I gave you at first," said Jacques Collin, "you can read it through again. I cannot alter the facts. I never went to the woman's house; how should I know who her cook was? The persons of whom you speak are utterly unknown to me."

"Notwithstanding your denial, we shall proceed to confront you with persons who may succeed in diminishing your assurance"

"A man who has been three times shot is used to anything," replied Jacques Collin meekly.

Camusot proceeded to examine the seized papers while awaiting the return of the famous Bibi-Lupin, whose expedition was amazing; for at half-past eleven, the inquiry having begun at ten o'clock, the usher came in to inform the judge in an undertone of Bibi-Lupin's arrival.

"Show him in," replied M. Camusot.

Bibi-Lupin, who had been expected to exclaim, "It is he," as he came in, stood puzzled. He did not recognize his man in a face pitted with smallpox. This hesitancy startled the magistrate.

"It is his build, his height," said the agent. "Oh! yes, it is you, Jacques Collin!" he went on, as he examined his eyes, forehead, and ears. "There are some things which no disguise can alter.... Certainly it is he, Monsieur Camusot. Jacques has the scar of a cut on his left arm. Take off his coat, and you will see..."

Jacques Collin was again obliged to take off his coat; Bibi-Lupin turned up his sleeve and showed the scar he had spoken of.

"It is the scar of a bullet," replied Don Carlos Herrera. "Here are several more."

"Ah! It is certainly his voice," cried Bibi-Lupin.

"Your certainty," said Camusot, "is merely an opinion; it is not proof."

"I know that," said Bibi-Lupin with deference. "But I will bring witnesses. One of the boarders from the Maison Vauquer is here already," said he, with an eye on Collin.

But the prisoner's set, calm face did not move a muscle.

"Show the person in," said Camusot roughly, his dissatisfaction betraying itself in spite of his seeming indifference.

This irritation was not lost on Jacques Collin, who had not counted on the judge's sympathy, and sat lost in apathy, produced by his deep meditations in the effort to guess what the cause could be.



The usher now showed in Madame Poiret. At this unexpected appearance the prisoner had a slight shiver, but his trepidation was not remarked by Camusot, who seemed to have made up his mind.

"What is your name?" asked he, proceeding to carry out the formalities introductory to all depositions and examinations.

Madame Poiret, a little old woman as white and wrinkled as a sweetbread, dressed in a dark-blue silk gown, gave her name as Christine Michelle Michonneau, wife of one Poiret, and her age as fifty-one years, said that she was born in Paris, lived in the Rue des Poules at the corner of the Rue des Postes, and that her business was that of lodging-house keeper.

"In 1818 and 1819," said the judge, "you lived, madame, in a boarding-house kept by a Madame Vauquer?"

"Yes, monsieur; it was there that I met Monsieur Poiret, a retired official, who became my husband, and whom I have nursed in his bed this twelvemonth past. Poor man! he is very bad; and I cannot be long away from him."

"There was a certain Vautrin in the house at the time?" asked Camusot.

"Oh, monsieur, that is quite a long story; he was a horrible man, from the galleys——"

"You helped to get him arrested?"

"That is not true sir."

"You are in the presence of the Law; be careful," said Monsieur Camusot severely.

Madame Poiret was silent.

"Try to remember," Camusot went on. "Do you recollect the man? Would you know him again?"

"I think so."

"Is this the man?"

Madame Poiret put on her "eye-preservers," and looked at the Abbe Carlos Herrera.

"It is his build, his height; and yet—no—if—Monsieur le Juge," she said, "if I could see his chest I should recognize him at once."

The magistrate and his clerk could not help laughing, notwithstanding the gravity of their office; Jacques Collin joined in their hilarity, but discreetly. The prisoner had not put on his coat after Bibi-Lupin had removed it, and at a sign from the judge he obligingly opened his shirt.

"Yes, that is his fur trimming, sure enough!—But it has worn gray, Monsieur Vautrin," cried Madame Poiret.

"What have you to say to that?" asked the judge of the prisoner.

"That she is mad," replied Jacques Collin.

"Bless me! If I had a doubt—for his face is altered—that voice would be enough. He is the man who threatened me. Ah! and those are his eyes!"

"The police agent and this woman," said Camusot, speaking to Jacques Collin, "cannot possibly have conspired to say the same thing, for neither of them had seen you till now. How do you account for that?"

"Justice has blundered more conspicuously even than it does now in accepting the evidence of a woman who recognizes a man by the hair on his chest and the suspicions of a police agent," replied Jacques Collin. "I am said to resemble a great criminal in voice, eyes, and build; that seems a little vague. As to the memory which would prove certain relations between Madame and my Sosie—which she does not blush to own—you yourself laughed at. Allow me, monsieur, in the interests of truth, which I am far more anxious to establish for my own sake than you can be for the sake of justice, to ask this lady—Madame Foiret——"

"Poiret."

"Poret—excuse me, I am a Spaniard—whether she remembers the other persons who lived in this—what did you call the house?"

"A boarding-house," said Madame Poiret.

"I do not know what that is."

"A house where you can dine and breakfast by subscription."

"You are right," said Camusot, with a favorable nod to Jacques Collin, whose apparent good faith in suggesting means to arrive at some conclusion struck him greatly. "Try to remember the boarders who were in the house when Jacques Collin was apprehended."

"There were Monsieur de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, Pere Goriot, Mademoiselle Taillefer——"

"That will do," said Camusot, steadily watching Jacques Collin, whose expression did not change. "Well, about this Pere Goriot?"

"He is dead," said Madame Poiret.

"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "I have several times met Monsieur de Rastignac, a friend, I believe, of Madame de Nucingen's; and if it is the same, he certainly never supposed me to be the convict with whom these persons try to identify me."

"Monsieur de Rastignac and Doctor Bianchon," said the magistrate, "both hold such a social position that their evidence, if it is in your favor, will be enough to procure your release.—Coquart, fill up a summons for each of them."

The formalities attending Madame Poiret's examination were over in a few minutes; Coquart read aloud to her the notes he had made of the little scene, and she signed the paper; but the prisoner refused to sign, alleging his ignorance of the forms of French law.

"That is enough for to-day," said Monsieur Camusot. "You must be wanting food. I will have you taken back to the Conciergerie."

"Alas! I am suffering too much to be able to eat," said Jacques Collin.

Camusot was anxious to time Jacques Collin's return to coincide with the prisoners' hour of exercise in the prison yard; but he needed a reply from the Governor of the Conciergerie to the order he had given him in the morning, and he rang for the usher. The usher appeared, and told him that the porter's wife, from the house on the Quai Malaquais, had an important document to communicate with reference to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre. This was so serious a matter that it put Camusot's intentions out of his head.

"Show her in," said he.

"Beg your pardon; pray excuse me, gentlemen all," said the woman, courtesying to the judge and the Abbe Carlos by turns. "We were so worried by the Law—my husband and me—the twice when it has marched into our house, that we had forgotten a letter that was lying, for Monsieur Lucien, in our chest of drawers, which we paid ten sous for it, though it was posted in Paris, for it is very heavy, sir. Would you please to pay me back the postage? For God knows when we shall see our lodgers again!"

"Was this letter handed to you by the postman?" asked Camusot, after carefully examining the envelope.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Coquart, write full notes of this deposition.—Go on, my good woman; tell us your name and your business." Camusot made the woman take the oath, and then he dictated the document.

While these formalities were being carried out, he was scrutinizing the postmark, which showed the hours of posting and delivery, as well at the date of the day. And this letter, left for Lucien the day after Esther's death, had beyond a doubt been written and posted on the day of the catastrophe. Monsieur Camusot's amazement may therefore be imagined when he read this letter written and signed by her whom the law believed to have been the victim of a crime:—

"Esther to Lucien.

"MONDAY, May 13th, 1830.

"My last day; ten in the morning.

"MY LUCIEN,—I have not an hour to live. At eleven o'clock I shall be dead, and I shall die without a pang. I have paid fifty thousand francs for a neat little black currant, containing a poison that will kill me with the swiftness of lightning. And so, my darling, you may tell yourself, 'My little Esther had no suffering.'—and yet I shall suffer in writing these pages.

"The monster who has paid so dear for me, knowing that the day when I should know myself to be his would have no morrow—Nucingen has just left me, as drunk as a bear with his skin full of wind. For the first and last time in my life I have had the opportunity of comparing my old trade as a street hussy with the life of true love, of placing the tenderness which unfolds in the infinite above the horrors of a duty which longs to destroy itself and leave no room even for a kiss. Only such loathing could make death delightful.

"I have taken a bath; I should have liked to send for the father confessor of the convent where I was baptized, to have confessed and washed my soul. But I have had enough of prostitution; it would be profaning a sacrament; and besides, I feel myself cleansed in the waters of sincere repentance. God must do what He will with me.

"But enough of all this maudlin; for you I want to be your Esther to the last moment, not to bore you with my death, or the future, or God, who is good, and who would not be good if He were to torture me in the next world when I have endured so much misery in this.

"I have before me your beautiful portrait, painted by Madame de Mirbel. That sheet of ivory used to comfort me in your absence, I look at it with rapture as I write you my last thoughts, and tell you of the last throbbing of my heart. I shall enclose the miniature in this letter, for I cannot bear that it should be stolen or sold. The mere thought that what has been my great joy may lie behind a shop window, mixed up with the ladies and officers of the Empire, or a parcel of Chinese absurdities, is a small death to me. Destroy that picture, my sweetheart, wipe it out, never give it to any one—unless, indeed, the gift might win back the heart of that walking, well-dressed maypole, that Clotilde de Grandlieu, who will make you black and blue in her sleep, her bones are so sharp.—Yes, to that I consent, and then I shall still be of some use to you, as when I was alive. Oh! to give you pleasure, or only to make you laugh, I would have stood over a brazier with an apple in my mouth to cook it for you.—So my death even will be of service to you.—I should have marred your home.

"Oh! that Clotilde! I cannot understand her.—She might have been your wife, have borne your name, have never left you day or night, have belonged to you—and she could make difficulties! Only the Faubourg Saint-Germain can do that! and yet she has not ten pounds of flesh on her bones!

"Poor Lucien! Dear ambitious failure! I am thinking of your future life. Well, well! you will more than once regret your poor faithful dog, the good girl who would fly to serve you, who would have been dragged into a police court to secure your happiness, whose only occupation was to think of your pleasures and invent new ones, who was so full of love for you—in her hair, her feet, her ears—your ballerina, in short, whose every look was a benediction; who for six years has thought of nothing but you, who was so entirely your chattel that I have never been anything but an effluence of your soul, as light is that of the sun. However, for lack of money and of honor, I can never be your wife. I have at any rate provided for your future by giving you all I have.

"Come as soon as you get this letter and take what you find under my pillow, for I do not trust the people about me. Understand that I mean to look beautiful when I am dead. I shall go to bed, and lay myself flat in an attitude—why not? Then I shall break the little pill against the roof of my mouth, and shall not be disfigured by any convulsion or by a ridiculous position.

"Madame de Serizy has quarreled with you, I know, because of me; but when she hears that I am dead, you see, dear pet, she will forgive. Make it up with her, and she will find you a suitable wife if the Grandlieus persist in their refusal.

"My dear, I do not want you to grieve too much when you hear of my death. To begin with, I must tell you that the hour of eleven on Monday morning, the thirteenth of May, is only the end of a long illness, which began on the day when, on the Terrace of Saint-Germain, you threw me back on my former line of life. The soul may be sick, as the body is. But the soul cannot submit stupidly to suffering like the body; the body does not uphold the soul as the soul upholds the body, and the soul sees a means of cure in the reflection which leads to the needlewoman's resource—the bushel of charcoal. You gave me a whole life the day before yesterday, when you said that if Clotilde still refused you, you would marry me. It would have been a great misfortune for us both; I should have been still more dead, so to speak—for there are more and less bitter deaths. The world would never have recognized us.

"For two months past I have been thinking of many things, I can tell you. A poor girl is in the mire, as I was before I went into the convent; men think her handsome, they make her serve their pleasure without thinking any consideration necessary; they pack her off on foot after fetching her in a carriage; if they do not spit in her face, it is only because her beauty preserves her from such indignity; but, morally speaking they do worse. Well, and if this despised creature were to inherit five or six millions of francs, she would be courted by princes, bowed to with respect as she went past in her carriage, and might choose among the oldest names in France and Navarre. That world which would have cried Raca to us, on seeing two handsome creatures united and happy, always did honor to Madame de Stael, in spite of her 'romances in real life,' because she had two hundred thousand francs a year. The world, which grovels before money or glory, will not bow down before happiness or virtue—for I could have done good. Oh! how many tears I would have dried—as many as I have shed—I believe! Yes, I would have lived only for you and for charity.

"These are the thoughts that make death beautiful. So do not lament, my dear. Say often to yourself, 'There were two good creatures, two beautiful creatures, who both died for me ungrudgingly, and who adored me.' Keep a memory in your heart of Coralie and Esther, and go your way and prosper. Do you recollect the day when you pointed out to me a shriveled old woman, in a melon-green bonnet and a puce wrapper, all over black grease-spots, the mistress of a poet before the Revolution, hardly thawed by the sun though she was sitting against the wall of the Tuileries and fussing over a pug—the vilest of pugs? She had had footmen and carriages, you know, and a fine house! And I said to you then, 'How much better to be dead at thirty!'—Well, you thought I was melancholy, and you played all sorts of pranks to amuse me, and between two kisses I said, 'Every day some pretty woman leaves the play before it is over!'—And I do not want to see the last piece; that is all.

"You must think me a great chatterbox; but this is my last effusion. I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a prostitute.

"No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one! If you could know with what a gush of love I have sat losing myself in your eyes, looking at them with rapture during a pause I allowed myself, you would feel as you gathered up the affection with which I have tried to overlay the ivory, that the soul of your little pet is indeed there.

"A dead woman craving alms! That is a funny idea.—Come, I must learn to lie quiet in my grave.

"You have no idea how heroic my death would seem to some fools if they could know Nucingen last night offered me two millions of francs if I would love him as I love you. He will be handsomely robbed when he hears that I have kept my word and died of him. I tried all I could still to breathe the air you breathe. I said to the fat scoundrel, 'Do you want me to love you as you wish? To promise even that I will never see Lucien again?'—'What must I do?' he asked.—'Give me the two millions for him.'—You should have seen his face! I could have laughed, if it had not been so tragical for me.

"'Spare yourself the trouble of refusing,' said I; 'I see you care more for your two millions than for me. A woman is always glad to know at what she is valued!' and I turned my back on him.

"In a few hours the old rascal will know that I was not in jest.

"Who will part your hair as nicely as I do? Pooh!—I will think no more of anything in life; I have but five minutes, I give them to God. Do not be jealous of Him, dear heart; I shall speak to Him of you, beseeching Him for your happiness as the price of my death, and my punishment in the next world. I am vexed enough at having to go to hell. I should have liked to see the angels, to know if they are like you.

"Good-bye, my darling, good-bye! I give you all the blessing of my woes. Even in the grave I am your Esther.

"It is striking eleven. I have said my last prayers. I am going to bed to die. Once more, farewell! I wish that the warmth of my hand could leave my soul there where I press a last kiss—and once more I must call you my dearest love, though you are the cause of the death of your Esther."

A vague feeling of jealousy tightened on the magistrate's heart as he read this letter, the only letter from a suicide he had ever found written with such lightness, though it was a feverish lightness, and the last effort of a blind affection.

"What is there in the man that he should be loved so well?" thought he, saying what every man says who has not the gift of attracting women.

"If you can prove not merely that you are not Jacques Collin and an escaped convict, but that you are in fact Don Carlos Herrera, canon of Toledo, and secret envoy of this Majesty Ferdinand VII.," said he, addressing the prisoner "you will be released; for the impartiality demanded by my office requires me to tell you that I have this moment received a letter, written by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she declares her intention of killing herself, and expresses suspicions as to her servants, which would seem to point to them as the thieves who have made off with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs."

As he spoke Monsieur Camusot was comparing the writing of the letter with that of the will; and it seemed to him self-evident that the same person had written both.

"Monsieur, you were in too great a hurry to believe in a murder; do not be too hasty in believing in a theft."

"Heh!" said Camusot, scrutinizing the prisoner with a piercing eye.

"Do not suppose that I am compromising myself by telling you that the sum may possibly be recovered," said Jacques Collin, making the judge understand that he saw his suspicions. "That poor girl was much loved by those about her; and if I were free, I would undertake to search for this money, which no doubt belongs to the being I love best in the world—to Lucien!—Will you allow me to read that letter; it will not take long? It is evidence of my dear boy's innocence—you cannot fear that I shall destroy it—nor that I shall talk about it; I am in solitary confinement."

"In confinement! You will be so no longer," cried the magistrate. "It is I who must beg you to get well as soon as possible. Refer to your ambassador if you choose——"

And he handed the letter to Jacques Collin. Camusot was glad to be out of a difficulty, to be able to satisfy the public prosecutor, Mesdames de Maufrigneuse and de Serizy. Nevertheless, he studied his prisoner's face with cold curiosity while Collin read Esther's letter; in spite of the apparent genuineness of the feelings it expressed, he said to himself:

"But it is a face worthy of the hulks, all the same!"

"That is the way to love!" said Jacques Collin, returning the letter. And he showed Camusot a face bathed in tears.

"If only you knew him," he went on, "so youthful, so innocent a soul, so splendidly handsome, a child, a poet!—The impulse to sacrifice oneself to him is irresistible, to satisfy his lightest wish. That dear boy is so fascinating when he chooses——"

"And so," said the magistrate, making a final effort to discover the truth, "you cannot possibly be Jacques Collin——"

"No, monsieur," replied the convict.

And Jacques Collin was more entirely Don Carlos Herrera than ever. In his anxiety to complete his work he went up to the judge, led him to the window, and gave himself the airs of a prince of the Church, assuming a confidential tone:

"I am so fond of that boy, monsieur, that if it were needful, to spare that idol of my heart a mere discomfort even, that I should be the criminal you take me for, I would surrender," said he in an undertone. "I would follow the example of the poor girl who has killed herself for his benefit. And I beg you, monsieur, to grant me a favor—namely, to set Lucien at liberty forthwith."

"My duty forbids it," said Camusot very good-naturedly; "but if a sinner may make a compromise with heaven, justice too has its softer side, and if you can give me sufficient reasons—speak; your words will not be taken down."