Poor Jacques Aubry was in a frame of mind bordering on despair when he left the Grand-Nesle; there could be no doubt that it was he who, involuntarily to be sure, had betrayed Ascanio's secret. But who was the man who had betrayed him? Surely not that gallant nobleman whose name he did not know: ah, no! he was a gentleman. It must have been that knave of a Henriot, unless it was Robin, or Chariot, or Guillaume. To tell the truth, poor Aubry rather lost himself in his conjectures; for the fact was that he had intrusted the secret to a dozen or more intimate friends, among whom it was no easy matter to find the culprit. But no matter! the first, the real traitor was himself, Jacques Aubry,—the infamous spy so roundly denounced by Benvenuto was himself. Instead of locking away in his heart his friend's secret which he had surprised, he had spread it broadcast in a score of places, and had brought disaster upon his brother Ascanio with his infernal tongue. Jacques tore his hair; Jacques beat himself with his fists; Jacques heaped mortal insults upon himself, and could find no invectives sufficiently bitter to qualify his conduct as it deserved.
His remorse became so keen, and threw him into such a state of exasperation with himself, that, for the first time in his life perhaps, Jacques Aubry indulged in reflection. After all, when his head should be bald, his chest black and blue, and his conscience torn to rags, Ascanio would be no nearer freedom. At any cost, he must repair the evil he had done, instead of wasting his time in despairing.
Honest Jacques had retained these words of Benvenuto: "I would give ten years of my life to the man who would gain admission to the prisoner, speak to him, and learn the secret by means of which I may subdue that arrogant duchess." And, as we have said, he began to reflect, contrary to his wont. The result of his reflections was that he must gain admission to the Châtelet. Once there, he would find a way to reach Ascanio.
But Benvenuto had sought in vain to gain admission as a visitor; and surely Jacques Aubry could never be so audacious as to think of attempting a thing in which the master had failed. However, although it might be impossible to effect an entrance as a visitor, it certainly should be much easier, at least so the student thought, to be admitted as a prisoner. He determined, therefore, to enter the Châtelet in that character; then, when he had seen Ascanio, and Ascanio had told him all, so that he had no further business at the Châtelet, he would take his leave, rich in the possession of the precious secret, and would go to Benvenuto, not to demand the ten years of his life that he offered, but to confess his crime, and implore forgiveness.
Delighted with the fecundity of his imagination, and proud of his unexampled devotion, he bent his steps toward the Châtelet.
"Let us see," he ruminated, as he walked with deliberate step toward the prison where all his hopes were centred,—"let us see, in order to avoid any more idiotic mistakes, how matters stand,—no easy task, considering that the whole business seems to me as tangled as Gervaise's skein when she gives it to me to hold, and I try to kiss her. Let's begin at the beginning. Ascanio loved Colombe, the provost's daughter: so far, so good. As the provost proposed to marry her to Comte d'Orbec, Ascanio carried her off: very good. Not knowing what to do with the sweet child when he had abducted her, he hid her in the head of the statue of Mars: best of all. Faith, it was a wonderfully ingenious hiding place, and nothing less than a beast—but let us pass over that: I shall find myself again later. Thereupon it would seem that the provost, acting upon my information, got his daughter into his clutches once more, and imprisoned Ascanio. Triple brute that I am! But here is where the skein begins to be tangled. What interest has the Duchesse d'Etampes in all this? She detests Colombe, whom everybody else loves. Why? Ah! I know. I remember certain jocose remarks of the apprentices, Ascanio's embarrassment when the duchess was mentioned,—Madame d'Etampes has her eye on Ascanio, and naturally abominates her rival. Jacques, my friend, you are a miserable wretch, but you are a clever dog all the same. Ah, yes! but now how does it happen that Ascanio has in his hands the means of ruining the duchess? Why does the king appear at intervals in the affair, with one Stefana? Why did Benvenuto constantly invoke Jupiter, rather a heathenish invocation for a Catholic? Deuce take me if I can see through all that. But it isn't absolutely necessary that I should understand. Light is to be found in Ascanio's cell; therefore the most essential thing is to get myself cast into the cell with him. I will manage the rest afterward."
As he thus communed with himself he reached his destination, and struck a violent blow upon the great door of the Châtelet. The wicket opened, and a harsh voice demanded to know his business: it was the jailer's.
"I wish for a cell in your prison," replied Aubry in a hollow voice.
"A cell!" exclaimed the astonished jailer.
"Yes, a cell: the blackest and deepest; even that will be better than I deserve."
"Why so?"
"Because I am a great criminal."
"What crime have you committed?"
"Ah! indeed, what crime have I committed?" Jacques asked himself, for he had not thought of preparing a crime suited to the occasion. As a fertile, lively imagination was not his most prominent characteristic, notwithstanding the compliments he had addressed to himself just before, he repeated, stupidly,—
"What crime?"
"Yes, what crime?"
"Guess," said Jacques. "This fellow ought to know more about crimes than I do," he added to himself, "so I will let him give me a list, and then make my selection."
"Have you murdered anybody?" asked the jailer.
"Great God! what do you take me for, my friend?" cried the student, whose conscience rose in revolt at the thought of being taken for a murderer.
"Have you stolen anything?" continued the jailer.
"Stolen? the idea!"
"What in Heaven's name have you done then?" cried the jailer testily. "To give yourself up as a criminal isn't all that is necessary: you must say what crime you've committed."
"But I tell you that I'm a villain, a vile wretch, and that I deserve the wheel or the gallows!"
"The crime? the crime?" the jailer repeated.
"The crime? Well! I have betrayed my friend."
"That's no crime," said the jailer. "Good night." And he closed the wicket.
"That's not a crime, you say? that's not a crime? What is it then, pray?"
And Jacques grasped the knocker with both hands, and knocked with all his strength.
"What's the matter? what's the matter?" said a different voice from within the Châtelet.
"It's a madman, who wants to be admitted into the prison," replied the jailer.
"If he's a madman, his place is not at the Châtelet, but at the asylum."
"At the asylum!" cried Aubry, scampering away as fast as his legs would carry him, "at the asylum! Peste! that's not what I want. I want to get into the Châtelet, not the asylum! Besides, paupers and beggars are sent to the asylum, and not people who have twenty Paris sous in their pocket as I have. The asylum! Why, that wretched jailer claims that to betray one's friend is no crime! So it seems that, in order to have the honor of being committed to prison one must have murdered or stolen. But now I think of it,—why might I not have led some young girl astray? There's nothing dishonorable about that. Very good, but what girl? Gervaise?"
Despite his preoccupation, the student roared with laughter.
"But, after all," he said, "though it isn't so, it might have been. Good! good! I have discovered my crime: I seduced Gervaise!"
On the instant he set off for the young working-girl's home, ran up the sixty stairs which led to her lodgings, and burst into the room where the lovely grisette in a coquettish négligé was ironing her linen.
"Ah!" exclaimed Gervaise, with a fascinating little shriek; "ah! monsieur, you frightened me!"
"Gervaise, my dear Gervaise," cried Aubry, rushing toward her with open arms: "you must save my life, my child."
"One moment, one moment," said Gervaise, using the hot flat-iron as a shield; "what do you want, master gadabout? for three days I haven't seen you."
"I have done wrong, Gervaise, I am an unfortunate wretch. But a sure proof that I love you is that I run to you in my distress. I repeat it, Gervaise, you must save my life."
"Yes. I understand, you have been getting tipsy in some wine shop, and have had a dispute with some one. The archers are after you to put you in prison, and you come to poor Gervaise to give you shelter. Go to prison, monsieur, go to prison, and leave me in peace."
"That is just what I ask and all I ask, my little Gervaise,—to go to prison. But the villains refuse to commit me."
"O mon Dieu! Jacques," said the young woman compassionately, "have you gone mad?"
"There you are! they say that I am mad, and propose to send me to the asylum, while the Châtelet is where I want to go."
"You want to go to the Châtelet? What for, Aubry? The Châtelet's a frightful prison; they say that when one gets in there, it's impossible to say when one will come out."
"I must get in there, however, I must!" cried the student. "There is no other way to save him."
"To save whom?"
"Ascanio."
"Ascanio? what, that handsome young fellow, your Benvenuto's pupil?"
"Himself, Gervaise. He is in the Châtelet, and he's there by my fault."
"Great God!"
"So that I must join him there," said Jacques, "and save him."
"Why is he in the Châtelet?"
"Because he loved the provost's daughter, and seduced her."
"Poor boy! Why, do they imprison men for that?"
"Yes, Gervaise. How you see it was like this: he had her in hiding. I discovered the hiding place, and, like an idiot, like an infamous villain, I told the whole story to everybody."
"Except me!" cried Gervaise. "That was just like you!"
"Didn't I tell it to you, Gervaise?"
"You didn't mention it. You're a great babbler with others, but not with me. When you come here it's to kiss me, to drink, or to sleep,—never to talk. Understand, monsieur, that a woman loves to talk."
"Well, what are we doing at this moment, my little Gervaise?" said Jacques. "We are talking, I should say."
"Yes, because you need me."
"It is true that you could do me a great service."
"What is it?"
"You could say that I seduced you."
"Why, of course you seduced me, you wretch."
"I!" cried Jacques in amazement. "I seduced you, Gervaise?"
"Alas! yes, that is the word: seduced, monsieur, shamelessly seduced by your fine words, by your false promises."
"By my fine words and false promises?"
"Yes. Didn't you tell me I was the prettiest girl in the whole quarter of Saint-Germain des Prés?"
"I tell you that now."
"Didn't you say that, if I didn't love you, you should die of love?"
"Do you think I said that? It's strange I don't remember it."
"While, on the contrary, if I did love you, you would marry me."
"Gervaise, I didn't say that. Never!"
"You did say it, monsieur."
"Never, never, never, Gervaise. My father made me take an oath like Hannibal's to Hamilcar."
"What was that?"
"He made me swear to die a bachelor, like himself."
"Oh!" cried Gervaise, summoning tears to the assistance of her words with a woman's marvellous power of weeping to order, "oh! you're like all the rest. Promises cost nothing, and when the poor girl is seduced they forget what they promised. I will take my turn at swearing now, and swear that I will never be caught again."
"And you will do well, Gervaise," said the student.
"When one thinks," cried the grisette, "that there are laws for robbers and cut-purses, and none for the scoundrels who ruin poor girls!"
"But there are, Gervaise."
"There are?"
"Why, of course. Didn't I tell you that they sent poor Ascanio to the Châtelet for seducing Colombe."
"They did well, too," said Gervaise, to whom the loss of her honor had never presented itself so forcibly until she was fully convinced that Jacques Aubry was determined not to give her his name by way of compensation. "Yes, they did well, and I wish you were in the Châtelet with him!"
"Mon Dieu! that's all I ask," cried the student; "and as I told you, my little Gervaise, I rely upon you to put me there."
"You rely upon me."
"Yes."
"Make sport of me, ingrate!"
"I'm not making sport of you, Gervaise. I say that if you had the courage—"
"To do what?"
"Accuse me before the judge."
"Of what?"
"Of having seduced you; but you would never dare."
"What's that? I wouldn't dare," cried Gervaise in an injured tone,—"I wouldn't dare to tell the truth!"
"Consider that you would have to make oath to it, Gervaise."
"I'll do it."
"You will make oath that I seduced you?"
"Yes, yes,—a hundred times yes!"
"Then all goes well," said the student joyfully. "I confess I was afraid: an oath is a serious matter."
"I'll take my oath to it this instant, and send you to the Châtelet, monsieur."
"Good!"
"And you will find your Ascanio there."
"Splendid!"
"And you will have all the time you need to do penance together."
"It's all that I ask."
"Where is the lieutenant criminal?"
"At the Palais de Justice."
"I will go there at once."
"Let us go together, Gervaise."
"Yes, together. In that way the punishment will follow at once."
"Take my arm, Gervaise."
"Come, monsieur."
They set off toward the Palais de Justice at the same gait at which they were accustomed to repair on Sundays to the Pré-aux-Clercs or the Butte Montmartre.
As they drew near the Temple of Themis, as Jacques Aubry poetically called the edifice in question, Gervaise's pace slackened perceptibly. When they reached the foot of the staircase, she had some difficulty in ascending; and finally, at the door of the lieutenant criminal's sanctum, her legs failed her altogether, and the student felt her whole weight hanging upon his arm.
"Well, Gervaise," said he, "is your courage giving out?"
"No," said Gervaise, "but a lieutenant criminal is an appalling creature."
"Pardieu! he's a man like other men!"
"True, but one must tell him things—"
"Very well; tell them."
"But I must swear."
"Then swear."
"Jacques," said Gervaise, "are you quite sure that you seduced me?"
"Am I sure of it!" said Jacques. "Pardieu! Besides, didn't you just insist upon it yourself that I did?"
"Yes, that is true; but, strangely enough, I don't seem to see things now in just the same light that I did a short time ago."
"Come, come," said Jacques, "you are weakening already: I knew you would."
"Jacques, my dear," cried Gervaise, "take me back to the house."
"Gervaise, Gervaise," said the student, "this isn't what you promised me."
"Jacques, I will never reproach you again, or say a word about it. I loved you because you took my fancy, that's all."
"Alas!" said the student, "this is what I feared; but it's too late."
"How too late?"
"You came here to accuse me, and accuse me you must."
"Never, Jacques, never: you didn't seduce me, Jacques; I was a flirt."
"Nonsense!" cried the student.
"Besides," added Gervaise, lowering her eyes, "one can be seduced but once."
"What do you mean?"
"The first time one loves."
"Hoity-toity! and you made me believe that you had never loved!"
"Jacques, take me back to the house."
"Oh indeed I won't!" said Jacques, exasperated by her refusal, and by the reason she gave for it. "No! no! no!"
And he knocked at the magistrate's door.
"What are you doing?" cried Gervaise.
"You see! I am knocking."
"Come in!" cried a nasal voice.
"I will not go in," exclaimed Gervaise, doing her utmost to release her arm from the student's. "I will not go in!"
"Come in," said the same voice a second time, a little more emphatically.
"Jacques, I will shriek, I will call for help," said Gervaise.
"Come in, I say!" said the voice a third time, nearer at hand, and at the same moment the door opened.
"Well! what do you want?" said a tall thin man dressed in black, the mere sight of whom made Gervaise tremble from head to foot.
"Mademoiselle here," said Aubry, "has come to enter complaint against a knave who has seduced her."
With that he pushed Gervaise into the black, filthy closet, which served as an anteroom to the lieutenant criminal's office. The door closed behind her as if by a spring.
Gervaise gave a feeble shriek, half terror, half surprise, and sat down, or rather fell, upon a stool which stood against the wall.
Jacques Aubry, meanwhile, lest she should call him back, or run after him, hurried away through corridors known only to law students and advocates, until he reached the courtyard of Sainte-Chapelle; thence he tranquilly pursued his way to Pont Saint-Michel, which it was absolutely certain that Gervaise must cross.
Half an hour later she appeared.
"Well!" said he, running to meet her, "what happened?"
"Alas!" said Gervaise, "you made me tell a monstrous lie; but I hope God will forgive me for it in view of my good intention."
"I'll take it upon myself," said Aubry. "Tell me what happened."
"Do you fancy that I know?" said Gervaise. "I was so ashamed that I hardly remember what it was all about. All I know is that the lieutenant criminal questioned me, and that I answered his questions sometimes yes, sometimes no: but I am not sure that I answered as I should."
"Wretched girl!" cried Aubry, "I believe it will turn out that she accused herself of seducing me."
"Oh, no! I don't think I went as far as that."
"At least they have my address, haven't they, so that they can summon me?"
"Yes," murmured Gervaise, "I gave it to them."
"It's all right then," said Aubry, "and now let us hope that God will do the rest."
Having escorted Gervaise to her abode and comforted her as best he could for the false testimony she had been compelled to give, Jacques Aubry returned home, overflowing with faith in Providence.
In fact, whether Providence took a hand in it, or chance did it all, Jacques Aubry received the next morning a summons to appear before the lieutenant criminal that same day.
This summons fulfilled Aubry's dearest hopes, and yet a court of justice is so redoubtable a place that he felt a shiver run through his veins as he read it. But we hasten to say that the certainty of seeing Ascanio again, and the longing to save the friend upon whom he had brought disaster, soon put an end to this demonstration of weakness on our student's part.
The summons fixed the hour of noon, and it was only nine o'clock: so he called upon Gervaise, whom he found no less agitated than on the previous day.
"Well?" said she, inquiringly.
"Well!" repeated Jacques triumphantly, exhibiting the paper covered with hieroglyphics which he held in his hand. "Here it is."
"For what hour?"
"Noon. That's all I was able to read."
"Then you don't know what you're accused of?"
"Why, of seducing you, my little Gervaise, I presume."
"You won't forget that you yourself insisted upon my doing it?"
"Why no; I am ready to give you a certificate that you utterly refused to do it."
"Then you bear me no ill will for obeying you."
"On the contrary, I couldn't be more grateful to you."
"Whatever happens?"
"Whatever happens."
"If I did say all that, it was because I was obliged to."
"Of course."
"And if, in my confusion, I said more than I meant to say, you will forgive me?"
"Not only will I forgive you, my dear, my divine Gervaise, but I do forgive you now in advance."
"Ah!" said Gervaise, with a sigh; "ah! bad boy, with such words as those you turned my head!"
From which it is easy to see that Gervaise had really been seduced.
At a quarter before twelve Jacques Aubry remembered that his summons bade him appear at twelve. He took leave of Gervaise, and as he had a long distance to go he ran all the way. Twelve o'clock was striking as he knocked at the lieutenant criminal's door.
"Come in!" cried the same nasal voice.
He was not called upon to repeat the invitation, for Jacques Aubry, with a smile on his lips, his nose in the air, and his cap over his ear, at once stood in the tall black-coated man's presence.
"What is your name?" asked the tall man.
"Jacques Aubry," replied the student.
"What are you?"
"Law student."
"What have you been doing?"
"Seducing girls."
"Aha! you're the man against whom a complaint was lodged yesterday by—by—"
"By Gervaise-Perrette Popinot."
"Very good; sit down yonder and await your turn."
Jacques sat down as the man in black bade him do, and waited.
Five or six persons of varying age, sex, and feature were waiting like himself, and as they had arrived before him their turns naturally came before his. Some of them went out alone,—they were the ones, doubtless, against whom no sufficient evidence was adduced,—while others went out accompanied by an exempt, or by two of the provost's guards. Jacques Aubry envied the fortune of these latter, for they were being taken to the Châtelet, to which he was so anxious to be admitted.
At last the name of Jacques Aubry, student, was called. Jacques Aubry instantly rose and rushed into the magistrate's office as joyously as if he were on his way to the most agreeable of entertainments.
There were two men in the lieutenant criminal's sanctum; one taller, thinner, and more forbidding than he in the antechamber, which Jacques Aubry would have deemed impossible five minutes earlier: this was the clerk. The other was short, fat, coarse, with a cheerful eye, a smiling mouth, and a jovial expression generally: this was the magistrate.
Aubry's smile and his met, and the student was quite ready to grasp his hand, so strongly conscious was he of the existence of a bond of sympathy between them.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the lieutenant criminal, as he caught the student's eye.
"Faith, that is true, messire," the student rejoined.
"You seem a jolly dog," said the magistrate. "Come, master knave, take a chair and sit you down."
Jacques Aubry took a chair, sat down, threw one leg over the other and swung it in high glee.
"Ah!" exclaimed the lieutenant, rubbing his hands. "Master Clerk, let us look over the complainant's deposition."
The clerk rose, and, by virtue of his great height, readied over to the other side of the table, and selected the documents concerning Jacques Aubry from a pile of papers.
"Here it is," he said.
"Who lodges the complaint?" inquired the magistrate.
"Gervaise-Perrette Popinot," said the clerk.
"That's it," said the student, nodding his head violently; "that's the one."
"A minor," said the clerk; "nineteen years of age."
"Oho! a minor!" exclaimed Aubry.
"So it appears from her declaration."
"Poor Gervaise!" muttered Aubry. "She was quite right when she said that she was so confused she didn't know what answers she made; she has confessed to twenty-two. However, nineteen it is."
"And so," said the lieutenant criminal, "and so, my buck, you are charged with seducing a minor child. Ha! ha! ha!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" echoed Aubry, joining in the judge's hilarity.
"With aggravating circumstances," continued the clerk, mingling his yelping tones with the jovial voices of the magistrate and the student.
"With aggravating circumstances," repeated the former.
"The devil!" exclaimed Jacques. "I should like very much to know what they were."
"As the complainant remained deaf to all the entreaties and wiles of the accused for six months—"
"For six months?" Jacques interposed. "Pardon, monsieur, I think there's a mistake there."
"For six months, monsieur, so it is written," replied the man in black, in a tone which admitted no rejoinder.
"So be it! six months it is," said Jacques; "but in truth Gervaise was quite right when she said—"
"The said Jacques Aubry, angered by her coldness, threatened her—"
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Jacques.
"Oh! oh!" echoed the judge.
"But," the clerk read on, "the said Gervaise-Perrette Popinot held out so stubbornly and courageously that the insolent fellow begged her forgiveness in view of his sincere repentance."
"Ah! ah!" muttered Aubry.
"Ah! ah!" exclaimed the magistrate.
"Poor Gervaise!" Aubry continued, speaking to himself, with a shrug; "what was the matter with her head?"
"But," continued the clerk, "his repentance was only feigned; unfortunately, the complainant, in her innocence and purity, allowed herself to be deceived by it, and one evening, when she was imprudent enough to accept refreshments of which the accused invited her to partake, the said Jacques Aubry mixed with her water—"
"With her water?" the student interrupted.
"The complainant declared that she never drinks wine," said the clerk.—"The said Jacques Aubry mixed an intoxicating decoction with her water."
"Look you, Master Clerk," cried Aubry; "what the deuce are you reading from?"
"The complainant's deposition."
"Impossible!"
"Is it so written?" inquired the magistrate.
"It is written."
"Go on."
"After all," said Aubry aside, "the more guilty I am, the surer I shall be of being sent to join Ascanio at the Châtelet. Intoxicating decoction it is. Go on, Master Clerk."
"You confess, do you?" queried the judge.
"I confess," said the student.
"Ah, gallows-bird!" exclaimed the judge, roaring with laughter, and rubbing his hands.
"So that," continued the clerk, "poor Gervaise, bereft of her reason, ended by confessing to her seducer that she loved him."
"Aha!" said Jacques.
"Lucky knave!" murmured the lieutenant criminal, whose little eyes shone.
"Why!" cried Aubry; "why, there isn't a word of truth in the whole of it!"
"You deny the charge?"
"Absolutely."
"Write," said the magistrate, "that the accused declares that he is not guilty of any of the charges brought against him."
"Wait a moment! wait a moment!" cried the student, who reflected that if he denied his guilt, they would not send him to prison.
"So you don't deny it altogether?" queried the judge.
"I confess that there is some little truth, not in the form, but in the substance."
"Oh! as you have confessed to the decoction," said the judge, "you may as well admit the results."
"True," said Jacques, "as I've confessed to the decoction, I admit the rest, Master Clerk. But, upon my word," he added in an undertone, "Gervaise was quite right in saying—"
"But that's not all," the clerk interrupted him.
"What! that's not all!"
"The crime of which the accused was guilty had terrible results. The unhappy Gervaise discovered that she was about to become a mother."
"Ah! that is too much!" cried Jacques.
"Do you deny the paternity?" asked the judge.
"Not only do I deny the paternity, but I deny the condition."
"Write," said the judge, "that the accused denies the paternity, and also denies the condition; an inquiry will be ordered on that point."
"One moment, one moment!" cried Aubry, realizing that if Gervaise were convicted of falsehood on a single point the whole structure would fall to the ground: "did Gervaise really say what the clerk has read?"
"She said it word for word," replied the clerk.
"Then if she said it," continued Aubry, "if she said it—why—"
"Well?" queried the lieutenant criminal.
"Why, it must be so."
"Write that the accused pleads guilty to all the charges."
The clerk wrote as directed.
"Pardieu!" said the student to himself, "if Ascanio deserves a week in the Châtelet for simply paying court to Colombe, I, who have deceived Gervaise, drugged her, and seduced her, can count upon three months' incarceration at the very least. But, faith, I would like to be sure of my facts. However, I must congratulate Gervaise. Peste! she kept to her word, and Jeanne d'Arc was nowhere beside her."
"So you confess to all the crimes you're accused of?" said the judge.
"I do, messire," replied Jacques unhesitatingly; "I do: all of them and more too, if you choose. I am a great sinner, Monsieur le Lieutenant Criminel, don't spare me."
"Impudent varlet!" muttered the magistrate, in the tone in which the uncle of comedy speaks to his nephew, "impudent varlet, out upon you!"
With that he let his great round head, with his bloated, purple face, fall upon his breast, and reflected magisterially.
"Whereas," he began, after meditating a few moments, raising his head, and lifting the index finger of his right hand,—"write, Master Clerk,—whereas Jacques Aubry, clerk of the Basoche, has pleaded guilty to the charge of seducing one Gervaise-Perrette Popinot by fine promises and simulated affection, we sentence said Jacques Aubry to pay a fine of twenty Paris sous, to support the child, if it is a boy, and to pay the costs."
"And the imprisonment?" cried Aubry.
"Imprisonment! what do you mean?" asked the judge.
"Why, I mean the imprisonment. For Heaven's sake, aren't you going to sentence me to prison?"
"No."
"You're not going to order me committed to the Châtelet as Ascanio was?"
"Who's Ascanio?"
"Ascanio is a pupil of Master Benvenuto Cellini."
"What did he do?"
"He seduced a maid."
"Who was she?"
"Mademoiselle Colombe d'Estourville, daughter of the Provost of Paris."
"What then?"
"What then! why I say that it's unjust, when we both committed the same crime, to make a distinction in the punishment. What! you send him to prison and fine me twenty Paris sous! In God's name, is there no justice in this world?"
"On the contrary," rejoined the magistrate, "it is because there is justice in this world, and enlightened justice too, that this is as it is."
"How so?"
"There are honors and honors, my young rascal; the honor of a noble maiden is valued at imprisonment; the honor of a grisette is worth twenty Paris sous. If you want to go to the Châtelet, you must try your arts on a duchess, and then the affair will take care of itself."
"But this is frightful! immoral! outrageous!" cried the student.
"My dear friend," said the judge, "pay your fine and begone!"
"I won't pay my fine, and I won't go."
"Then I shall call a couple of archers and commit you to prison until you do pay it."
"That's all I ask."
The judge summoned two guards:—
"Take this scoundrel to the Grands-Carmes!"
"The Grands-Carmes!" cried Jacques; "why not the Châtelet, pray?"
"Because the Châtelet is not a debtor's prison, my friend; because the Châtelet is a royal fortress, and one must have committed some heinous crime to be sent there. The Châtelet! Ah! yes, my little fellow, you'll get to the Châtelet soon enough, just wait!"
"One moment," said Aubry, "one moment."
"What is it?"
"If I am not to be sent to the Châtelet, I will pay."
"Very well; if you pay, there's nothing more to be said. You may go, you fellows, the young man will pay."
The archers went out and Jacques Aubry took from his wallet twenty Paris sous, which he spread out in a line on the judge's desk.
"See if that is right," said the lieutenant criminal.
The clerk rose, and to execute the order bent his back like a how, embracing in the half-circle described by his body, which seemed to possess the power of lengthening itself out indefinitely, his table and the papers which lay upon it. As he stood with his feet on the floor and his hands on the judge's desk, he reminded one of a sombre-hued rainbow.
"It is right," he said.
"Then off with you, my young rascal," said the magistrate, "and give place to others; the court has no more time to waste on you. Go."
Jacques saw that he had nothing to gain by remaining there, and withdrew in despair.