The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon. Alexandre Dumas

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      “THE PRISONERS ADMITTED they belonged to a group that had joined Monsieur de Teyssonnet, who was gathering an army in the Auvergne mountains. But they categorically denied that they had ever had the slightest connection with the stagecoach thieves named d’Assas, Adler, Montbar, and Morgan. They could make such brazen declarations because the stagecoaches had always been robbed by masked men. In only one case had the face of one of the leaders ever been seen, and that was my brother’s face.

      “When they attacked the stagecoach running between Lyon and Vienne, a boy of about ten or twelve, who was in the cabriolet with the coachman, picked up the coachman’s pistol and shot at the Companions of Jehu. But the coachman, having foreseen just such a situation, had been careful not to load any bullets in his pistols. The boy’s mother, unaware of the coachman’s precaution, was so afraid for her son that she had fainted. My brother immediately tried to help her—he gave her some salts to breathe and tried to calm her shaken nerves—but as she thrashed about, she inadvertently knocked off Morgan’s mask and had been able to see Sainte-Hermine’s face.

      “Throughout the trial, the public had great sympathy for the accused men. Each man’s alibi was proven by letters and witnesses, and the woman who had seen the bandit Morgan’s face declared that he was not among the four accused men. Furthermore, nobody had been harmed by their attacks, and nothing was taken but the treasure, and no one cared much about the treasure since there was no way of knowing who it belonged to really.

      “The four men were about to be acquitted, when the president, turning unexpectedly to the woman who had fainted, asked, ‘Madame, would you be so good as to tell the court which of these gentlemen was gallant enough to provide the help you needed when you felt faint?’ The woman, caught unawares by the question, perhaps thought that while she was absent the four accused had admitted who they were. Or maybe she thought it a ploy to attract more sympathy for the accused men. Whatever she thought, she pointed to my brother and said, ‘Monsieur le Président, it was Monsieur le Comte de Sainte-Hermine.’

      “Thus, the four accused men, all of them protected by the same indivisible alibi, were all of them brought down together and delivered to the hand of the executioner. ‘By Jove, Capitaine,’ said de Jahiat, stressing the word ‘captain,’ ‘that will teach you what being gallant is all about.’

      “One cry of joy arose in the courtroom. Diana de Fargas was triumphant.

      “‘Madame’—my brother bowed to the woman who had identified him—‘you have just caused four heads to fall with one single blow.’ Realizing what she had done, the woman fell to her knees and begged for forgiveness. But it was too late!

      “I was in the audience that day, and felt about to faint myself. I also felt undying love for my brother.

      “On that very day, the four condemned men were sentenced to death.

      “Three of them refused to appeal. The fourth, Jahiat, resolutely did not. He told his companions he had a plan; and so they’d not attribute the delay he’d requested to any fear of dying, he explained that he was in the process of seducing the jailer’s daughter and that he hoped, with her, to find a way of escaping during the six or eight weeks the appeal would take. The three others, no longer objecting, joined with Jahiat and signed the papers requesting an appeal.

      “Once they had latched on to the idea of escape, the four young souls clung to the possibility of life. It was not that they feared death, but death on the scaffold held no appeal as it lacked honor and conferred no prestige. So they encouraged Jahiat on their behalf to pursue his work of seduction, and in the meantime they tried to enjoy what was left of life as much as they could.

      “The appeal did not offer much hope. For the First Consul had declared clearly his intention to crush all those bands of Royalist sympathizers until he had wiped them out completely.

      “I myself exhausted all possible steps and every prayer to reach my brother. It was impossible.

      “The accused men were ideal, I must say, as objects for everyone’s sympathies. They were young and handsome; they dressed in the latest fashion. They were confident without being haughty: all smiles with the public and polite with their judges, although they did sometimes make fun about what was happening. Not to mention that they belonged to some of the most important families of the province.

      “The four accused men, the oldest of them not yet thirty, who had defended themselves against the guillotine but not against the firing squad, who had admitted they might deserve death but who asked to die as soldiers, composed an attractive tableau of youth, courage, and magnanimity.

      “As everyone expected, their appeal was denied.

      “Jahiat had managed to win the love of Charlotte, the jailer’s daughter, but the lovely girl’s influence over her father was not so great that she could arrange a means for the prisoners to escape. Not that Comptois, the chief jailer, didn’t pity the young men. He was a good man, a Royalist at heart, but, above all, an honest man. He would have given his right arm to prevent the misfortune befalling his four prisoners, but he refused sixty thousand francs to help them escape.

      “Three gunshots fired outside the prison conveyed the news to the condemned men that their sentence had been upheld. That night, Charlotte brought each of the prisoners a pair of loaded pistols and a dagger; it was all the poor girl was able to do.

      “The three gunshots and the imminent execution of the four condemned but admired young men alarmed the commissioner, and he requested the largest group of armed men that could be mustered. At six in the morning, as the scaffold was being constructed in the Place du Bastion, sixty horsemen stood ready for battle just outside the gate to the prison courtyard. Behind them, more than a thousand people were amassing in the square.

      “The execution was set for seven o’clock. At six, the jailers entered the condemned men’s cells. The evening before, they had left their prisoners in shackles and without weapons. Only now they stood free СКАЧАТЬ