A terrified silence, broken only by the receding footsteps of the captain of the guards, and by the constantly increasing murmur of the multitude without, followed this order, which gave the rebellion of Messieurs les Princes a more terrible and perilous aspect than any it had as yet assumed. Its inevitable effect was by a single act to place the princess and her advisers, the army and the city, outside the pale of the law; it was to burden an entire population with responsibility for the selfishness and passions of the few; it was to do on a small scale what the Commune of Paris did on the 2d of September. But, as we know, the Commune of Paris acted on a grand scale.

Not a sound could be heard in the hall; all eyes were fixed upon the door through which the prisoner was expected to appear. The princess, in order to act out her part of presiding magistrate, made a pretence of looking over the lists; Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld had assumed a musing expression, and Monsieur de Bouillon was talking with Madame de Tourville about his gout, which caused him much suffering.

Lenet approached the princess to make a last effort; not that he had any hope of success, but he was one of those conscientious men, who fulfil a duty because their conscience imposes upon them the obligation to do so.

"Consider, madame," said he, "that you are risking the future of your house upon a single throw."

"There is no great merit in that," said the princess dryly, "for I am sure to win."

"Monsieur le Duc," said Lenet, turning to La Rochefoucauld, "do not you, who are so superior to commonplace motives and vulgar human passions, advise moderation?"

"Monsieur," retorted the duke, hypocritically, "I am at this moment discussing the point with my reason."

"Discuss it rather with your conscience, Monsieur le Duc," replied Lenet; "that would be much better."

At that moment they heard the sound of the outer door closing. The sound echoed in every heart, for it announced the arrival of one of the two prisoners. Soon steps resounded on the stairway, halberds rang upon the flags, the door opened, and Canolles appeared.

He had never appeared so distinguished, had never been so handsome; his calm, unmoved face had retained the cheerful expression of happy ignorance. He came forward with easy, unaffected bearing, as he might have done in the salon of Monsieur Lavie, or Président Lalasne, and respectfully saluted the princess and the dukes.

The princess was amazed at his perfect ease of manner, and gazed at the young man for a moment without speaking.

At last she broke the silence.

"Come forward, monsieur," said she.

Canolles obeyed and saluted a second time.

"Who are you?"

"I am Baron Louis de Canolles, madame."

"What rank did you hold in the royal army?"

"I was lieutenant-colonel."

"Were you not governor of ?le Saint-Georges?"

"I had that honor."

"You have told the truth?"

"In every point, madame."

"Have you taken down the questions and answers, master clerk?"

The clerk bowed.

"Sign, monsieur," said the princess.

Canolles took the pen with the air of a man who does not understand the purpose of a command, but obeys out of deference to the rank of the person who makes it, and signed his name with a smile.

"'Tis well, monsieur," said the princess; "you may now retire."

Canolles saluted his judges once more, and withdrew with the same grace and freedom from constraint, and with no manifestation of surprise or curiosity.

The door was no sooner closed behind him than the princess rose.

"Well, messieurs?" said she with a questioning accent.

"Well, madame, let us vote," said the Duc de La Rochefoucauld.

"Let us vote," echoed the Duc de Bouillon. "Will these gentlemen be kind enough to express their opinion?" he added, turning to the municipal dignitaries.

"After you, monseigneur," replied one of them.

"Nay, nay, before you!" cried a sonorous voice, in which there was such an accent of determination that everybody stared in amazement.

"What does this mean?" demanded the princess, trying to identify the owner of the voice.

"It means," cried a man, rising, so that there should be no doubt as to his identity, "that I, André Lavie, king's advocate and counsellor of parliament, demand in the king's name, and in the name of humanity, for prisoners detained in Bordeaux upon parole, the privileges and guaranties to which they are entitled. Consequently, my conclusion is—"

"Oho! Monsieur l'Avocat," exclaimed the princess with a shrug, "none of your court jargon in my presence, I pray you, for I do not understand it. This is an affair of sentiment that we are engaged upon, and not a paltry pettifogging lawsuit; every one who has a seat upon this tribunal will understand the propriety of this course, I presume."

"Yes, yes," rejoined the sheriffs and the officers in chorus; "vote, messieurs, vote!"

"I said, and I say again," continued Lavie; unabashed by the princess's rebuke, "I demand their privileges and guaranties for prisoners detained on parole. This is no question of lawsuits, but of the law of nations!"

"And I say, furthermore," cried Lenet, "that Richon was heard in his own defence before he met his cruel fate, and that it is no more than fair that we should hear these accused persons."

"And I," said D'Espagnet, the militia officer, who took part in the attack upon Saint-Georges with Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld, "I declare that if any clemency be shown, the city will rise in revolt."

A shout from without seemed to echo and confirm his words.

"Let us make haste," said the princess. "What penalty shall we inflict upon the accused?"

"There are two of them, madame," suggested several voices.

"Is not one enough for you, pray?" retorted Lenet, smiling scornfully at this sanguinary servility.

"Which shall it be, then; which?" demanded the same voices.

"The fattest one, cannibals!" cried Lavie. "Ah! you complain of injustice and shout sacrilege, and yet you propose to reply to an assassination by two murders! A noble combination of philosophers and soldiers melted together into murderers!"

The flashing eyes of the majority of the judges seemed quite ready to blast the courageous king's advocate. Madame de Condé had risen from her chair and was looking inquiringly into the faces of those about her as if to assure herself that the words she had heard had really been uttered, and if there really was a man on earth bold enough to say such things in her presence.

Lavie realized that his continued presence would result in adding to the bitter feeling, and that his manner of defending the accused would destroy instead of saving them. He determined to retire, therefore, but to retire rather as a judge declining to serve than as a soldier taking to his heels.

"In the name of God Almighty," said he, "I protest against what you propose to do; in the king's name, I forbid it!"

With that, he overturned his arm-chair with a wrathful gesture, and stalked out of the room with his head in the air, like a man strong in the consciousness of duty well done, and indifferent to the possible results thereof.

"Insolent!" muttered the princess.

"No matter! no matter! let him have his way," said several; "Master Lavie's turn will come."

"Let us vote!" exclaimed the judges, almost as one man.

"But why vote without hearing the accused?" said Lenet. "Perhaps one of them will seem to you more guilty than the other. Perhaps you will conclude to concentrate upon a single head the vengeance which you now propose to divide between two."

At that moment the outer door was heard a second time.

"Very good!" said the princess, "we will vote upon both at once."

The judges, who had left their seats in disorder, sat down once more. Again the sound of footsteps was heard, accompanied by the ringing of halberds on the flags; the door opened once more and Cauvignac appeared.

The newcomer presented a striking contrast to Canolles; his garments still showed the effects of his encounter with the populace, despite the pains he had taken to efface them; his eyes glanced hastily from the sheriffs to the officers, from the dukes to the princess, embracing the whole tribunal in a sort of circular glance; then, with the air of a fox devising a stratagem, he came forward, feeling the ground at every step, so to speak, with every faculty on the alert, but pale and visibly disturbed.

"Your Highness did me the honor to summon me to your presence," he began, without waiting to be questioned.

"Yes, monsieur, for I desired to be enlightened upon certain points relative to yourself, which cause us some perplexity."

"In that case," rejoined Cauvignac, with a bow, "I am here, madame, ready to requite the honor your Highness is pleased to confer upon me."

He bowed with the most graceful air he could muster, but it was clearly lacking in ease and naturalness.

"That you may do very speedily," said the princess, "if your answers are as definite as our questions."

"Allow me to remind your Highness," said Cauvignac, "that, as the question is always prepared beforehand, and the response never, it is more difficult to respond than to question."

"Oh! our questions will be so clear and precise," said the princess, "that you will be spared any necessity for reflecting upon them. Your name?"

"Ah! madame, there you are! there is a most embarrassing question, first of all."

"How so?"

"It often happens that one has two names, the name one has received from his family, and the name one has received from himself. Take my own case as an example: I thought that I had sufficient reason for laying aside my first name in favor of another less widely known; which of the two names do you require me to give you?"

"That under which you presented yourself at Chantilly, that under which you agreed to raise a company in my interest, that under which you did raise it, and that under which you sold yourself to Monsieur de Mazarin."

"Pardon me, madame," said Cauvignac; "but I have the impression that I had the honor to reply satisfactorily to all these questions during the audience your Highness was graciously pleased to grant me this morning."

"At this time I put but one question to you," said the princess beginning to lose patience. "I simply ask you your name."

"Very true! but that is just what embarrasses me."

"Write Baron de Cauvignac," said the princess.

The accused made no objection, and the clerk wrote as directed.

"Now, your rank?" said the princess; "I trust you will find no difficulty in replying to this question."

"On the contrary, madame, that ............