The cours criminel on the banks of the Seine had been crowded all day, and the judges seated on the bench began to exhibit signs of fatigue at their labours. They had sat from ten o'clock in the morning far into the afternoon, and, now that four o'clock was at hand, it appeared as if their sitting would be still further prolonged; and this in spite of the number of cases they had disposed of.

A variety of malefactors, or so-called malefactors, had on that day received their sentences: some for professing the "reformed religion," as they blasphemously—in the judges' eyes—termed it; some for being bullies and cutthroats; a student aged sixteen had been sentenced to imprisonment in the Bastille for writing on the walls a distich on Louis, stating that he had displaced God in the minds of the French;[9] and a marchioness had been condemned to a fine of twenty pistoles and to remain out of Paris for a year for having poisoned her husband; also a spy, a Dutchman, supposed to be in the service of the accursed Stadtholder and English king, had been condemned to death by burning, his entrails to be first cut out and flung in his face; and several petty malefactors—a drunken priest who had read a portion of Rabelais to his flock instead of a sermon; a lampoonist who had written a joke on the De Maintenon; an actor who had struck a gentleman in defence of his own daughter; and a courtesan who had induced a young nobleman to spend too much money on her—were all sentenced to the Bastille, to Vincennes, and BicÊtre for various periods.

"Now," said Monsieur de Rennie, who presided to-day, when the last of these wretches had been finished off—"now, is the list cleared? We have sat six hours." And the other judges, one on either side of him, repeated his words and murmured, "Six hours!"

"Your lordships have still some other cases," the procureur du roi said, addressing them, "which you will probably be willing to dispose of to-day. There is one of a man who is thought to have abandoned his ship in the recent disaster at La Hogue, and to have escaped to Paris, where he was captured in hiding; and another of three Jansenists who have blasphemed the faith; also there is a man, an escaped galÉrien, brought hither from Rambouillet by an officer of the RÉgiment de GrancÉ for trial."

"Are the facts clear," asked the presiding judge, "against this man? If so, the case will not occupy us long, and we will take it to-night."

"Quite clear," the procureur replied, "so far as I gather."

"Bring him in."

A moment later St. Georges stood in the dock set apart for the criminals, his hands tied in front of him. And in the court many eyes were cast toward him as he took his stand. All knew that, for those who successfully escaped the galleys, there was but one ending if ever caught again.

"Who gives evidence against this prisoner?" De Rennie asked, looking at St. Georges under his bushy white eyebrows. "And what is his name?—Prisoner, what is your name? Answer truly to the court."

"I have no name," St. Georges replied; "I refuse to answer to any."

The judge's eyebrows were lifted into his forehead and down again; then he observed to his brother judge on his right, with a shrug of his shoulders, "Contumacious!" and then, because he was a man who disliked to be thwarted, he exclaimed: "So much the worse for you. Well, M. le procureur, who prosecutes—who is there as witness?"

"The officer who arrested him and afterward brought him to Paris. He can give your lordships the facts."

"Very well. Why does he not do so? Let him stand forward."

The officer stood forward, in so far that he stood up in the well of the crowd—his gold-laced, cockaded hat still upon his head, since as an officer of the king he was entitled to wear it in all other places but church—and briefly he answered the presiding judge's questions. Yes, he was a lieutenant of the RÉgiment de GrancÉ, quartered at Rambouillet—in his opinion, a miserable hole. His opinion on Rambouillet, the judge said, frowning, was not required; he would be good enough to give his name. His name was De Mortemart. De Mortemart! Perhaps, said the judge, he might be a relative of the Duc de Mortemart? Yes, the officer replied, he might be; in effect he was a son of that personage. The judge was pleased to hear it; the duke was universally known and respected, and—the acoustic qualities of the court were bad—would M. de Mortemart take a seat on the bench, where he and his brother judges could better hear him? The officer did not mind, though he was not inconvenienced where he was, but, of course, if their lordships desired. And so forth.

"Now," the judge said with great sweetness, when he had reached the exalted elevation, "would M. de Mortemart give himself the trouble to state how the fellow before them had fallen into his hands?" M. de Mortemart did give himself the trouble—telling, however, exactly what he thought fit, and also omitting many facts which he did not feel disposed to mention—to wit, he contented himself by saying that the "gentleman" in the dock had been betrayed by a woman into their hands—a "treacherous reptile" he termed her—but he said nothing about St. Georges having acknowledged that he had been a soldier of France once, and had afterward fought on the English side against France. To his young and chivalrous mind it was, indeed, a terrible thing that any Frenchman should join with England against his own country, but—he did not say so to the judge trying that man. The case was bad enough against him without that.

In answer to further questions put with great politeness and an evident desire on the judge's part not to bore the son of the Duc de Mortemart too much, he stated that according to orders, he had escorted the gentleman in trouble to Paris, and that he had ridden by that gentleman's side all the way, treating him as well as possible. Yes, he was bound to say he sympathized with the prisoner (he did not say that he wished to Heaven the prisoner had availed himself of many opportunities he had given him of escaping); he thought he had been hardly treated—especially by the woman who was, in truth, a viper. Did he mean to say, the judge asked almost apologetically, that he had allowed the prisoner to ride unbound by his side? Yes, he did mean to say so; the prisoner had made no attempt, either, to take advantage of the license. Did Monsieur de Mortemart think that was wise on his part as an officer? Yes, on his part as an officer he did think so. He was an officer; not"—and here he cast his eye on the turnkeys and jailers in the court"—"the canaille." And, in effect, the prisoner was before the court; that justified him.

After this the judges ceased to ask the Duc de Mortemart's son any further questions, but went on with other matters. One of the canaille, a jailer, was put on the witness stand and questioned briefly. "Speak, fellow," said the president in a totally different tone from that which he had hitherto used to the duke's son, "have you examined the prisoner—is he branded?"

"He is, my lord, on his shoulder; an undoubted galÉrien."

"Enough! Stand down."

"Prisoner," addressing St. Georges, "what have you to say?"

"Nothing. Do your worst."

"No justification of your quitting the galleys?"

"Nothing that you would accept as such. Yet this I will say: I did not escape of my own attempt; the galley I was in was sunk by an English admiral off their coast; almost all were lost. I was saved and taken back to England."

"So! That may make a difference. What was the galley's name?"

"L'Idole."

Here the judge on the president's right hand leaned over to him and said: "This may be the truth. I had a nephew, an officer, on board L'Idole—she was sunk."

"Allowing such to be the case, prisoner, how comes it you are back in France?"

"I desired to return, and took the first opportunity."

"Ay, he did," suddenly roared out a voice in the court. "And ask him how he returned, my lord; ask him that!"

In an instant all eyes were turned to the place whence the sound came, and the presiding judge became scarlet in the face at any one having the presumption to so bawl at him in the court. "Exempts," he cried, "find out the ruffian who dares to outrage the king's justice by bellowing before us thus. Find him out, I say, and bring him before us!"

It required, however, very little "finding out," since he who had so cried was the man whom the procureur du Roi had spoken of as having abandoned his ship at La Hogue and fled to Paris, and was now present as a prisoner in the court to be tried for his offence. Nor was there much need to hustle and drag him forward, since he came willingly enough—he thought he saw here an immunity from punishment—if punishment be deserved—a chance of escape by the evidence he could give.

"Who is the fellow?" asked De Rennie, when, partly by the man's own willing efforts and partly by pushings and jostlings, he had been got on to the witness stand with two jailers on either side of him. "Who is he?"

"He is, my lord," the procureur du roi said, "the man who is charged with deserting his ship at La Hogue and fleeing to Paris. He says, however, he can give evidence against the galÉrien here which will also go far to absolve him of his desertion—if your lordships will hear him."

"Ay," said De Rennie, "we will hear him very willingly. But," he said, addressing the sailor, "tell no lies, fellow, in hope of escaping your own punishment. Understand that! And understand, also, that you must justify your own desertion."

"I need tell no lies," the man replied, a rough, bull faced and throated man, with every mark of a seaman about him, "to justify myself. And there was no desertion. Mon Dieu! was Tourville a deserter when he went ashore from L'Ambitieux? If so, then I am one, for I went with him."

"Tell your tale," De Rennie exclaimed angrily, the man's utter want of respect irritating him, "and speak no slander against the king's officers."

"Slander!" the sailor repeated—"slander! How slander? I am Tourville's own coxswain; acted under his orders——"

"Go on!" roared the judge. "Your evidence against the prisoner. Your evidence!"

Briefly the man's evidence was this—and as he told it all in the court knew that the fate of the prisoner was sealed. After that nothing could save him.

The man was Tourville's coxswain—he produced a filthy, water-soaked paper from his breast to prove it—had been with him in Le Soleil Royal, had gone with the admiral when he transferred his flag to L'Ambitieux, had taken that flag from the lieutenant's hands and, with his own, hauled it up on the latter vessel.

"But," continued the man, "it was not for long. The English had got us in shoal water, their fireships and attenders came at us and burned us; their boarding parties came in two hundred boats—we could do nothing after the first resistance! And among those boarding parties"—and he lifted his finger and pointed at the prisoner in the dock—"was one in command of that man—that, standing there in the dock."

"Fellow!" exclaimed the judge, "this is a Frenchman. Beware!—no lies."

"I tell no lies. It is the truth. Ask him. He was on the deck of L'Ambitieux with a dozen other boat crews; we could not resist; their whole fleet came over our sides; the admiral and I left in the same boat, he bade us all save ourselves, gave us our freedom, disbanded us. Send for him, ask him if I am a deserter. Ask, too, that man, if he fought not against us on the English side."

"You hear," De Rennie said, looking toward St. Georges, "the charge against you—that you, a Frenchman, fought on the English side against your country. Answer the court, is it true?"

With all eyes turned on him—the pitying eyes of De Mortemart, the scowling eyes of the judges, and the vindictive eyes of most people in the court, who, having been hitherto inclined to sympathize with the prisoner, now only thirsted for his death—St. Georges drew himself up and faced his inquirer. Then, a moment later, he said: "It is true."

Those words were the signal for an indescribable hubbub in the court. Men muttered fiercely, "Burn him, burn him!" women shrieked to one another that no wonder the English devils had beaten France when Frenchmen fought on their side, forgetting the mothers that bore them; and De Mortemart, muttering between white lips: "My God! nothing can save him," left the court. The coxswain, too, who but a quarter of an hour before had heard hissed in his ears the words "lÂche," "dÉserteur," "misÉrable," and other epithets, was now the centre of a group of turnkeys and exempts, all asking him why he had not told them before that he was a hero?

Meanwhile the procureur du roi, arrayed in his scarlet gown, sat at his table arranging his papers—there would be no further trials that day, he knew, the Jansenists and others would have to wait—and glancing up now and again at the other three scarlet-robed figures on the bench, conferring with their heads close together. Presently, however, a nod from De Rennie to the greffier caused that official to bawl out orders for silence in the court, and forced the muttering men and shrieking women to hold their tongues. They did so, willingly enough, too; they knew what was coming.

"Are your lordships prepared to deliver judgment?" asked the procureur du roi, carrying out the usual formula and pushing his papers away and rising as he addressed them.

"We are prepared," the president replied.

"I pray your lordships do so."

"The sentence of the court is that the prisoner be taken to the HÔtel de Ville, and from there to the Place de GrÈve, and there broken on the wheel till he is dead."

More murmurings, more exclamations from the nervous, excited crowd, and then a hush, while again the procureur's voice was heard:

"I pray your lordships to appoint a day and hour on which your righteous sentence shall be carried out."

"The decree of the court is that the sentence be carried out at the daybreak following the time when forty-eight hours shall have elapsed from now."

"In the name of justice I thank your lordships.—Prisoner," and the procureur turned to him, "you hear and understand your sentence?"

"Yes, I hear and understand it."