There was a brawling mob by the framework of poles and scaffoldings about the building cathedral, upon which work had been commenced a year ago. But he did not pause to ascertain the particular cause of that gathering. He strode on, and thus came presently to the handsome Italianate palace that was one of the few public edifices hat had survived the devastating fire of sixty years ago.
He won through with difficulty to the great hall, known as the Salle des Pas Perdus, where he was left to cool his heels for a full half-hour after he had found an usher so condescending as to inform the god who presided over that shrine of Justice that a lawyer from Gavrillac humbly begged an audience on an affair of gravity.
That the god condescended to see him at all was probably due to the grave complexion of the hour. At long length he was escorted up the broad stone staircase, and ushered into a spacious, meagrely furnished anteroom, to make one of a waiting crowd of clients, mostly men.
There he spent another half-hour, and employed the time in considering exactly what he should say. This consideration made him realize the weakness of the case he proposed to set before a man whose views of law and morality were coloured by his social rank.
At last he was ushered through a narrow but very massive and richly decorated door into a fine, well-lighted room furnished with enough gilt and satin to have supplied the boudoir of a lady of fashion.
It was a trivial setting for a King’s Lieutenant, but about the King’s Lieutenant there was—at least to ordinary eyes—nothing trivial. At the far end of the chamber, to the right of one of the tall windows that looked out over the inner court, before a goat-legged writing-table with Watteau panels, heavily encrusted with ormolu, sat that exalted being. Above a scarlet coat with an order flaming on its breast, and a billow of lace in which diamonds sparkled like drops of water, sprouted the massive powdered head of M. de Lesdiguieres. It was thrown back to scowl upon this visitor with an expectant arrogance that made Andre-Louis wonder almost was a genuflexion awaited from him.
Perceiving a lean, lantern-jawed young man, with straight, lank black hair, in a caped riding-coat of brown cloth, and yellow buckskin breeches, his knee-boots splashed with mud, the scowl upon that August visage deepened until it brought together the thick black eyebrows above the great hooked nose.
“You announce yourself as a lawyer of Gavrillac with an important communication,” he growled. It was a peremptory command to make this communication without wasting the valuable time of a King’s Lieutenant, of whose immense importance it conveyed something more than a hint. M. de Lesdiguieres accounted himself an imposing personality, and he had every reason to do so, for in his time he had seen many a poor devil scared out of all his senses by the thunder of his voice.
He waited now to see the same thing happen to this youthful lawyer from Gavrillac. But he waited in vain.
Andre-Louis found him ridiculous. He knew pretentiousness for the mask of worthlessness and weakness. And here he beheld pretentiousness incarnate. It was to be read in that arrogant poise of the head, that scowling brow, the inflexion of that reverberating voice. Even more difficult than it is for a man to be a hero to his valet—who has witnessed the dispersal of the parts that make up the imposing whole—is it for a man to be a hero to the student of Man who has witnessed the same in a different sense.
Andre-Louis stood forward boldly—impudently, thought M. de Lesdiguieres.
“You are His Majesty’s Lieutenant here in Brittany,” he said—and it almost seemed to the August lord of life and death that this fellow had the incredible effrontery to address him as one man speaking to another. “You are the dispenser of the King’s high justice in this province.”
Surprise spread on that handsome, sallow face under the heavily powdered wig.
“Is your business concerned with this infernal insubordination of the canaille?” he asked.
“It is not, monsieur.”
The black eyebrows rose. “Then what the devil do you mean by intruding upon me at a time when all my attention is being claimed by the obvious urgency of this disgraceful affair?”
“The affair that brings me is no less disgraceful and no less urgent.”
“It will have to wait!” thundered the great man in a passion, and tossing back a cloud of lace from his hand, he reached for the little silver bell upon his table.
“A moment, monsieur!” Andre-Louis’ tone was peremptory. M. de Lesdiguieres checked in sheer amazement at its impudence. “I can state it very briefly…”
“Haven’t I said already…”
“And when you have heard it,” Andre-Louis went on, relentlessly, interrupting the interruption, “you will agree with me as to its character.”
M. de Lesdiguieres considered him very sternly.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Andre-Louis Moreau.”
“Well, Andre-Louis Moreau, if you can state your plea briefly, I will hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you fail to justify the impertinence of this insistence at so inopportune a moment.”
“You shall be the judge of that, monsieur,” said Andre-Louis, and he proceeded at once to state his case, beginning with the shooting of Mabey, and passing thence to the killing of M. de Vilmorin. But he withheld until the end the name of the great gentleman against whom he demanded justice, persuaded that did he introduce it earlier he would not be allowed to proceed.
He had a gift of oratory of whose full powers he was himself hardly conscious yet, though destined very soon to become so.. He told his story well, without exaggeration, yet with a force of simple appeal that was irresistible. Gradually the great man’s face relaxed from its forbidding severity. Interest, warming almost to sympathy, came to be reflected on it.
“And who, sir, is the man you charge with this?”
“The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.”
The effect of that formidable name was immediate. Dismayed anger, and an arrogance more utter than before, took the place of the sympathy he had been betrayed into displaying.
“Who?” he shouted, and without waiting for an answer, “Why, here’s impudence,” he stormed on, “to come before me with such a charge against a gentleman of M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s eminence! How dare you speak of him as a coward.”
“I speak of him as a murderer,” the young man corrected. “And I demand justice against him.”
“You demand it, do you? My God, what next?”
“That is for you to say, monsieur.”
It surprised the great gentleman into a more or less successful effort of self-control.
“Let me warn you,” said he, acidly, “that it is not wise to make wild accusations against a nobleman. That, in itself, is a punishable offence, as you may learn. Now listen to me. In this matter of Mabey—assuming your statement of it to be exact—the gamekeeper may have exceeded his duty; but by so little that it is hardly worth comment. Consider, however, that in any case it is not a matter for the King’s Lieutenant, or for any court but the seigneurial court of M. de La Tour d’Azyr himself. It is before the magistrates of his own appointing that such a matter must be laid, since it is matter strictly concerning his own seigneurial jurisdiction. As a lawyer you should not need to be told so much.”
“As a lawyer, I am prepared to argue the point. But, as a lawyer I also realize that if that case were prosecuted, it could only end in the unjust punishment of a wretched gamekeeper, who did no more