ount Claudieuse. It is crushing, you say. I say it is
singular. What! here is a witness who sees his last hour drawing nigh,
and who yet waits for the last minute of his life before he speaks. And
you think that is natural! You pretend that it was generosity which made
him keep silent. I, I ask you how the most cruel enemy could have acted
more atrociously?

"'Never was a case clearer,' says the prosecution. On the contrary,
I maintain that never was a case more obscure; and that, so far from
fathoming the secret of the whole affair, the prosecution has not found
out the first word of it."

M. Folgat takes his seat, and the sheriff's officers have to interfere
to prevent applause from breaking out. If the vote had been taken at
that moment, M. de Boiscoran would have been acquitted.

But the proceedings are suspended for fifteen minutes; and in the
meantime the lamps are lit, for night begins to fall.

When the president resumes his chair, the attorney-general claims his
right to speak.

"I shall not reply as I had at first proposed. Count Claudieuse is
about to pay with his life for the effort which he has made to place his
evidence before you. He could not even be carried home. He is perhaps
at this very moment drawing his last breath upon earth in the adjoining
room."

The counsel for the defence do not desire to address the jury; and, as
the accused also declares that he has nothing more to say, the president
sums up, and the jurymen withdrew to their room to deliberate.

The heat is overwhelming, the restraint almost unbearable; and all faces
bear the marks of oppressive fatigue; but nobody thinks of leaving the
house. A thousand contradictory reports circulate through the excited
crowd. Some say that Count Claudieuse has died; others, on the contrary,
report him better, and add that he has sent for the priest from Brechy.

At last, a few minutes after nine o'clock, the jury reappears.

Jacques de Boiscoran is declared guilty, and, on the score of
extenuating circumstances, sentenced to twenty years' penal labor.

THIRD PART--COCOLEU

I.

Thus M. Galpin triumphed, and M. Gransiere had reason to be proud of his
eloquence. Jacques de Boiscoran had been found guilty.

But he looked calm, and even haughty, as the president, M. Domini,
pronounced the terrible sentence, a thousand times braver at that
moment than the man who, facing the squad of soldiers from whom he is to
receive death, refuses