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"Don't take them to Troyes; keep them in your guardhouse at Arcis," he said to the lieutenant; "they must be present to-morrow, at daybreak, when we compare the shoes of their horses with the hoof-prints in the park." Lechesneau and Pigoult did not follow until they had closely questioned Catherine, Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre, and Laurence.
We'll examine it after daylight, and find out by the footsteps who went that way." "I see a hoof-mark," said Corentin; "let us go to the stables." "How many horses do you keep?" said Peyrade, returning to the salon with Corentin, and addressing Monsieur d'Hauteserre and Goulard. "Come, monsieur le maire, you know, answer," cried Corentin, seeing that that functionary hesitated.
The worthy old d'Hauteserre, poised on his long thin legs like a heron, was standing beside the stout form of the mayor, in an attitude expressive of utter stupefaction. The mayor, though dressed as a bourgeois, always looked like a servant.
You know the law of the 6th Floreal, year X., which amnestied all the emigres who were still in foreign countries on condition that they returned home before the 1st Vendemiaire of the year XI., that is to say, in September of last year. But the Messieurs Simeuse having, like the Messieurs d'Hauteserre, served in the army of Conde, they come into the category of exceptions to this law.
Her savings, judiciously invested in the Funds by old Monsieur d'Hauteserre at the moment when consols fell in 1830, gave Berthe a dowry of eighty thousand francs a year in 1833, when she was twenty. About that time the Princesse de Cadignan, who was seeking to marry her son, the Duc de Maufrigneuse, brought him into intimate relations with Madame de Cinq-Cygne.
Just as Goulard was preparing to go to bed, Corentin, who stopped the vehicle in a little wood, went to his house and told him, confidentially, that in a few moments an emissary from the government would require him to enter the chateau of Cinq-Cygne and arrest the brothers d'Hauteserre and Simeuse; and in case they had already disappeared he would have to ascertain if they had slept there the night before, search Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne's papers, and, possibly, arrest both the masters and servants of the household.
"What penalties are attached to the crime?" asked Monsieur d'Hauteserre. "Well, as the old law continues in force, and they are not amenable under the Code, the penalty is death," replied the justice. "Death!" cried Madame d'Hauteserre, fainting away. The abbe now came in with his sister, who stopped to speak to Catherine and Madame Durieu. "We haven't even seen your cursed senator!" said Michu.
Not lacking money, thanks to Michu, during their emigration, they had been able to travel and be received at foreign courts. Old d'Hauteserre and the abbe thought them rather haughty; but in their present position this may have been the sign of nobility of character. They possessed all the eminent little marks of a careful education, to which they added a wonderful dexterity in bodily exercises.
In these days we are so far removed from this theory of primitive people that almost all women, even those who do not desire the fatal emancipation offered by the new sects, will be shocked in merely hearing of it; but it must be owned that Robert d'Hauteserre had the misfortune to think in that way. Robert was a man of the middle-ages, Adrien a man of to-day.
The witnesses for the defence, always less important in the eyes of a jury and of the law than the witnesses for the prosecution, seemed to testify as in duty bound, and were listened to with that allowance. In the first place neither Marthe, nor Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre took the oath. Catherine and the Durieus, in their capacity as servants, did not take it.
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