Jean Charost answered in the affirmative, and the man made a sign to the person who had followed the youth across the garden and had entered the vestibule with him. Immediately Jean felt his arm taken hold of, somewhat roughly, by the personage behind him, and, ere he well knew what was taking place, he was pulled into a small room on one side of the vestibule, and the door closed upon him. The room was already tenanted by three or four persons of different conditions. One seemed an old soldier, with a very white beard, and a scar across his brow; one was dressed as a mendicant friar; and one, by his round jacket, knee-breeches, and blue stockings, with broad-toed shoes and a little square cap, was evidently a mechanic. The old soldier was walking up and down the room with a very irritable air; the mendicant friar was telling his beads with great rapidity; the mechanic sat in a corner, twisting his thumbs round and round each other, and looking half stupefied. The scene did not explain itself at all, and Jean stood for a moment or two, not at all comprehending why he was brought there, or what was to happen next.
"By Saint Hubert, this is too bad!" exclaimed the old soldier, at length; and approaching the door, he tried to open it, but it was locked.
"Pray, what is the matter?" asked Jean Charost, simply.
"Why, don't you know?" exclaimed the old man. "On my life, I believe the duke is as mad as his brother."
"The fact is, my son," said the friar, "some offense was committed here last night, a robbery or a murder; and the duke has given orders that every body who was at the house after the hour of seven should be detained till the matter is investigated."
"He does not suppose I committed a murder!" exclaimed the old soldier, in a tone of great indignation.
"I can't tell that," replied the friar, with a quiet smile; "gentlemen of your profession sometimes do."
"I never murdered any body in my life," whined the mechanic.
"Happy for you," said the friar; "and happier still if you get people to believe you."
He then addressed himself to his beads again, and for nearly an hour all was silence in the room, except the low muttering of the friar's paters and aves. But the gay hopes of Jean Charost sunk a good deal under the influence of delay and uncertainty, although, of course, he felt nothing like alarm at the situation in which he was placed. At length a man in a black gown and a square black cap was introduced, struggling, it is true, and saying to those who pushed him in, "Mark, I resist! it is not with my own consent. This incarceration is illegal. The duke is not a lord high justiciary on this ground; and for every minute I will have my damages, if there be honesty in the sovereign courts, and justice in France."
The door was closed upon him, however, unceremoniously; for the servants of great men in those days were not very much accustomed to attend to punctilios of law; and the advocate, for so he seemed, turned to his fellow-prisoners, and told them in indignant terms how he had been engaged to defend the steward of the prince in a little piece of scandal that had arisen in the Marais; how he had visited him to consult the night before, and had been seized on his return that day, and thrust in there upon a pretense that would not bear an argument.
"I thought," said the old soldier, bitterly, "that you men of the robe would make any thing bear an argument. I know you argued me out of all my fortune among you."
The little petulant man of law had not time to reply, when the door was opened, and the whole party were marched into the presence of the Duke of Orleans, under the escort of half a dozen men-at-arms.
The duke was seated in the little hall where Jean Charost had seen him on the preceding night, with his hair rough and disheveled, and his apparel neglected. His eyes were fixed upon the table before him, and he only raised them once or twice during the scene that followed; but a venerable-looking man who sat beside him, and who was, in fact, one of the judges of the Châtelet, kept his eyes fixed upon the little party which now entered with one of those cold, fixed, but piercing looks that seem to search the heart by less guarded avenues than the lips.
"Ah, Maître Pierrot le Brun," he said, looking at the advocate, "I will deal with you, brother, first. Pray what was it brought you hither last night, and again this morning?"
The advocate replied, but in a tone greatly subdued, as compared with that which he had used in the company of his fellow-prisoners. His case was soon proved, and he was suffered to depart, offering somewhat humiliating thanks for his speedy dismissal.
The old soldier, however, maintained his surly tone, and when asked what brought him thither the night before and again that day, replied boldly, "I came to see if the Duke of Orleans would do something for a man-at-arms of Charles the Fifth. I fought for his father, and was one half ruined by my services to my king, the other half by such men as the one who has just gone out. I can couch a lance, or wield a sword as well as ever, and I don't see why, being a gentleman of name and arms, I should be thrown on one side like a rusty plastron."
The Duke of Orleans suddenly raised his head, asked the old man's name, wrote something on a bit of paper, and gave it to him, seeming to raise no small emotions of joy and satisfaction; for the soldier caught his hand and kissed it warmly, as if his utmost wishes were gratified.
The judge was for asking some more questions, but the duke interfered, saying, "I know him--let him pass. He had no share in this."
The mendicant friar was next examined, and, to say truth, his account of himself did not seem, to the ears of Jean Charost at least, to be quite as satisfactory as could be desired. His only excuse for being twice in the palace of the duke within four-and-twenty hours was, that he came to beg an alms for his convent, and there was a look of shrewd meaning in his countenance while he replied, which to one who did not know all the various trades exercised by gentry of his cloth, seemed exceedingly suspicious. The duke and the magistrate, however, appeared to be satisfied, and the former then turned his eyes upon Jean Charost, while the judge called up the mechanic and put some questions to him.
"Who are you, young gentleman?" said the Duke of Orleans, motioning Jean to approach him. "I have seen your face somewhere--who are you?"
"I waited upon your highness last night," replied Jean Charost, with the rear-guard of all his hopes and expectations routed by the discovery that the duke did not even recollect him. "I was brought hither by Monsieur Jacques Cœur; and by your own command, I returned this morning at nine o'clock."
"I remember," said the duke, "I remember;" and, casting down his eyes again, he fell into a fit of thought which had not come to an end when the judge concluded his examination of the poor mechanic. That examination had lasted longer than any of the others; for it seemed that the man had been working till a late hour on the previous evening on the bolts of some windows which looked from a neighboring house into the gardens of the Orleans palace, and that shortly before the hour at which the murder was committed he had seen a tall man pass swiftly along the corridor, near which he was employed. He could not describe his apparel, the obscurity having prevented his remarking the color; but he declared that it looked like the costume of a priest or a monk, and was certainly furnished with a hood, much in the shape of a cowl. This was all that could be extracted from him, and, indeed, it was evident that he knew no more; so, in the end, he was suffered to depart.
The judge then turned to Jean Charost, who remained standing before the Duke of Orleans, in anxious expectation of what was to come next. The duke was still buried in thought; for the young man's reply to his question had probably revived in his mind all the painful feelings first produced by the intelligence which had interrupted his conversation with Jacques Cœur on the preceding night.
"What is your name, your profession, and what brought you to the Orleans palace last night, young man?" asked the judge, in a grave, but not a stern tone.
"My name is Jean Charost de Brecy," replied the young man, "a gentleman by name and arms; and I came hither last night--"
But the Duke of Orleans roused himself from his revery, and waved his hand, saying, "Enough--enough, my good friend. I know all about this young man. He could have no share in the dark deed: for he was with me when it was