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Updated: June 18, 2025
He hoped that his bitter enemy the marquise might die, and, in that case, he thought he could win the son through his grandfather, old d'Hauteserre, who was then living at Cinq-Cygne and whom he knew to be accessible to the persuasions of money.
The four young men and Laurence were so hungry and the dinner so acceptable that they would not delay it by changing their dress. They entered the salon, she in her riding-habit, they in their white leather breeches, high-top boots and green-cloth jackets, where they found Monsieur d'Hauteserre and his wife, not a little uneasy at their long absence.
At eleven o'clock that night, after the jury had replied through their foreman to the usual questions, the Court condemned Michu to death, the Messieurs de Simeuse to twenty-four years' and the Messieurs d'Hauteserre to ten years, penal servitude at hard labor. Gothard was acquitted. The whole audience was eager to observe the bearing of the five guilty men in this supreme moment of their lives.
Just then the party from the stables returned. Laurence went up to Madame d'Hauteserre, who recovered her senses enough to say: "The penalty is death!" "Death!" repeated Laurence, looking at the four gentlemen. The word excited a general terror, of which Giguet, formerly instructed by Corentin, took immediate advantage.
When, at midnight, Laurence found herself alone with Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre, the abbe and his sister, and without the four young men who for the last eighteen months had been the life of the chateau and the love and joy of her own life, she fell into a gloomy silence which no one present dared to break. No affliction was ever deeper or more complete than hers.
So, for the last two months, she had seemed to the inhabitants of Cinq-Cygne more beautiful than at any other period of her life. Her cheeks became rosy; hope gave pride to her brow; but when old d'Hauteserre read the Gazette at night and discussed the conservative course of the First Consul she lowered her eyes to conceal her passionate hopes of the coming fall of that enemy of the Bourbons.
"Monsieur d'Hauteserre had blamed me for not doing it," replied Michu. "But," said the prosecutor, "if you used that plaster on the post you must have had a trough and a trowel. Now, if you went to the chateau to tell Monsieur d'Hauteserre that you had done the work, how do you explain the fact that Gothard was bringing you more plaster.
"It was natural enough that I should warn you of a rumor which was certain to be a slander; but what have you done now? you have let such weak persons as Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre and their sons see that there was truth in it. Oh, young men! young men! You ought to keep Michu here and go away yourselves.
The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d'Hauteserre felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and he grieved that he had no sword. The servants trembled for an instant with joy.
These differences instead of hindering their affection had drawn its bonds the closer. On the first evening after the return of the young men these shades of character were caught and understood by the abbe, Mademoiselle Goujet, and Madame d'Hauteserre, who, while playing their boston, were secretly foreseeing the difficulties of the future.
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