第27章

The des Vanneaulx then had recourse to the lawyer who had defended Tascheron, and to him they offered ten per cent of whatever sum he could recover. This lawyer was the only person before whom Tascheron was not violent. The heirs authorized him to offer the prisoner an additional ten per cent to be paid to his family. In spite of all these inducements and his own eloquence, the lawyer could obtain nothing whatever from his client. The des Vanneaulx were furious; they anathematized the unhappy man.

"He is not only a murderer, but he has no sense of decency," cried Madame des Vanneaulx (ignorant of Fualdes' famous complaint), when she received word of the failure of the Abbe Pascal's efforts, and was told there was no hope of a reversal of the sentence by the court of appeals.

"What good will our money do him in the place he is going to?" said her husband. "Murder can be conceived of, but useless theft is inconceivable. What days we live in, to be sure! To think that people in good society actually take an interest in such a wretch!"

"He has no honor," said Madame des Vanneaulx.

"But perhaps the restitution would compromise the woman he loves," said an old maid.

"We would keep his secret," returned Monsieur des Vanneaulx.

"Then you would be compounding a felony," remarked a lawyer.

"Oh, the villain!" was Monsieur des Vanneaulx's usual conclusion.

One of Madame Graslin's female friends related to her with much amusement these discussions of the des Vanneaulx. This lady, who was very intelligent, and one of those persons who form ideals and desire that all things should attain perfection, regretted the violence and savage temper of the condemned; she would rather he had been cold and calm and dignified, she said.

"Do you not see," replied Veronique, "that he is thus avoiding their temptations and foiling their efforts? He is making himself a wild beast for a purpose."

"At any rate," said the lady, "he is not a well-bred man; he is only a workman."

"If he had been a well-bred man," said Madame Graslin, "he would soon have sacrificed that unknown woman."

These events, discussed and turned and twisted in every salon, every household, commented on in a score of ways, stripped bare by the cleverest tongues in the community, gave, of course, a cruel interest to the execution of the criminal, whose appeal was rejected after two months' delay by the upper court. What would probably be his demeanor in his last moments? Would he speak out? Would he contradict himself?

How would the bets be decided? Who would go to see him executed, and who would not go, and how could it be done? The position of the localities, which in Limoges spares a criminal the anguish of a long distance to the scaffold, lessens the number of spectators. The law courts which adjoin the prison stand at the corner of the rue du Palais and the rue du Pont-Herisson. The rue du Palais is continued in a straight line by the short rue de Monte-a-Regret, which leads to the place des Arenes, where the executions take place, and which probably owes its name to that circumstances. There is therefore but little distance to go, few houses to pass, and few windows to look from. No person in good society would be willing to mingle in the crowd which would fill the streets.

But the expected execution was, to the great astonishment of the whole town, put off from day to day for the following reason:--The repentance and resignation of great criminals on their way to death is one of the triumphs which the Church reserves for itself,--a triumph which seldom misses its effect on the popular mind. Repentance is so strong a proof of the power of religious ideas--taken apart from all Christian interest, though that, of course, is the chief object of the Church--that the clergy are always distressed by a failure on such occasions. In July, 1829, such a failure was aggravated by the spirit of party which envenomed every detail in the life of the body politic.

The liberal party rejoiced in the expectation that the priest-party (a term invented by Montlosier, a royalist who went over to the constitutionals, and was dragged by them far beyond his wishes),--that the priests would fail on so public an occasion before the eyes of the people. Parties /en masse/ commit infamous actions which would cover a single man with shame and opprobrium; therefore when one man alone stands in his guilt before the eyes of the masses, he becomes a Robespierre, a Jeffries, a Laubardemont, a species of expiatory altar on which all secret guilts hang their /ex-votos/.

The authorities, sympathizing with the Church, delayed the execution, partly in the hope of gaining some conclusive information for themselves, and partly to allow religion an opportunity to prevail.

Nevertheless, their power was not unlimited, and the sentence must sooner or later be carried out. The same liberals who, out of mere opposition, had declared Tascheron innocent, and who had done their best to break down the verdict, now clamored because the sentence was not executed. When the opposition is consistent it invariably falls into such unreasonableness, because its object is not to have right on its own side, but to harass the authorities and put them in the wrong.

Accordingly, about the beginning of August, the government officials felt their hand forced by that clamor, so often stupid, called "public opinion." The day for the execution was named. In this extremity the Abbe Dutheil took upon himself to propose to the bishop a last resource, the adoption of which caused the introduction into this judicial drama of a remarkable personage, who serves as a bond between all the figures brought upon the scene of it, and who, by ways familiar to Providence, was destined to lead Madame Graslin along a path where her virtues were to shine with greater brilliancy as a noble benefactress and an angelic Christian woman.