r from his
client. The des Vanneaulx were furious; they anathematized the unhappy
man.

"He is not only a murderer, but he has no sense of decency," cried
Madame des Vanneaulx (ignorant of Fualdes' famous complaint), when she
received word of the failure of the Abbe Pascal's efforts, and was told
there was no hope of a reversal of the sentence by the court of appeals.

"What good will our money do him in the place he is going to?" said
her husband. "Murder can be conceived of, but useless theft is
inconceivable. What days we live in, to be sure! To think that people in
good society actually take an interest in such a wretch!"

"He has no honor," said Madame des Vanneaulx.

"But perhaps the restitution would compromise the woman he loves," said
an old maid.

"We would keep his secret," returned Monsieur des Vanneaulx.

"Then you would be compounding a felony," remarked a lawyer.

"Oh, the villain!" was Monsieur des Vanneaulx's usual conclusion.

One of Madame Graslin's female friends related to her with much
amusement these discussions of the des Vanneaulx. This lady, who was
very intelligent, and one of those persons who form ideals and desire
that all things should attain perfection, regretted the violence and
savage temper of the condemned; she would rather he had been cold and
calm and dignified, she said.

"Do you not see," replied Veronique, "that he is thus avoiding their
temptations and foiling their efforts? He is making himself a wild beast
for a purpose."

"At any rate," said the lady, "he is not a well-bred man; he is only a
workman."

"If he had been a well-bred man," said Madame Graslin, "he would soon
have sacrificed that unknown woman."

These events, discussed and turned and twisted in every salon, every
household, commented on in a score of ways, stripped bare by the
cleverest tongues in the community, gave, of course, a cruel interest
to the execution of the criminal, whose appeal was rejected after two
months' delay by the upper court. What would probably be his demeanor in
his last moments? Would he speak out? Would he contradict himself? How
would the bets be decided? Who would go to see him executed, and who
would not go, and how could it be done? The position of the localities,
which in Limoges spares a criminal the anguish of a long distance to the
scaffold, lessens the number of spectators. The law courts which adjoin
the prison stand at the corner of the rue du Palais and the rue