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Updated: June 23, 2025
"Incendiaries have set Valpinson on fire!" broke in the mayor. "You do not say so? Great God! "'Jupiter, Quod verbum audio." "More than that. Count Claudieuse has been shot, and by this time he is probably dead." "Oh!" "You hear the drummer is beating the alarm.
Now I ask you, how could I, upon whom fortune has always smiled; I who am on the eve of marrying one whom I love passionately, how could I have set Valpinson on fire, and tried to murder Count Claudieuse?" M. Galpin had scarcely been able to disguise his impatience, when he saw the attorney take part in the affair. Seizing, therefore, the opportunity to interfere, he said,
We have none." "It is reported, I have heard it myself, that you are on bad terms." "On no terms at all. I never leave Valpinson, and M. de Boiscoran spends nine months of the year in Paris. He has never called at my house, and I have never been in his." "You have been overheard speaking of him in unmeasured terms." "That may be.
As soon as a crime has been reported to a French magistrate, he is at liberty to do any thing he chooses in order to discover the guilty one. Absolutely master of the case, responsible only to his conscience, and endowed with extraordinary powers, he proceeds as he thinks best. But, in this affair at Valpinson, M. Galpin had been carried away by the rapidity of the events themselves.
He goes ahead, and hurries home; for he thinks Count Claudieuse is dead; he knows Valpinson is in flames; and he fears he will hear the bells ring, and see the fire raging."
"It is too late for help," said M. Galpin. "Such a fine property!" said the mayor, "and so well managed!" And regardless of danger, he dashed forward, down the hill; for Valpinson lies in a deep valley, half a mile from the river. Here all was terror, disorder, and confusion; and yet there was no lack of hands or of good-will.
Thereupon he went to work to describe the events which he had witnessed at Valpinson, and those, which, as he had learned from the commonwealth attorney, had taken place at Boiscoran; and this he did with all the lucidity of an experienced old lawyer who is accustomed to unravel the mysteries of complicated suits. He wound up by saying,
We will only say that he surpassed himself in this charge, which, for more than an hour, held the large assembly in anxious and breathless suspense, and caused all hearts to vibrate with the most intense excitement. He commences with a description of Valpinson, "this poetic and charming residence, where the noble old trees of Rochepommier are mirrored in the crystal waves of the Seille.
Big drops of perspiration rolled slowly down his temples; and nervous shocks agitated his limbs, and convulsed his features. "I, I am telling the truth!" he said at last. "M. de. Boiscoran has set Valpinson on fire?" "Yes." "How did he do it?" Cocoleu's restless eyes wandered incessantly from the count, who looked indignant, to the countess, who seemed to listen with painful surprise.
"Jacques alone can judge his situation, and he alone, therefore, has the right to command. Our duty is to obey. I appeal to M. Folgat." The young advocate nodded his head. "Every thing has been done that could be done," he said. "Now we can only wait." The famous night of the fire at Valpinson had been a godsend to the good people of Sauveterre.
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