Asie, in perfect confidence that he should come across her, so
entirely did he rely on the woman's genius.

"During the preliminary examination," he reflected, "I pretended to be a
Spaniard and spoke broken French, appealed to my Ambassador, and alleged
diplomatic privilege, not understanding anything I was asked, the
whole performance varied by fainting, pauses, sighs--in short, all
the vagaries of a dying man. I must stick to that. My papers are all
regular. Asie and I can eat up Monsieur Camusot; he is no great shakes!

"Now I must think of Lucien; he must be made to pull himself together. I
must get at the boy at whatever cost, and show him some plan of conduct,
otherwise he will give himself up, give me up, lose all! He must be
taught his lesson before he is examined. And besides, I must find some
witnesses to swear to my being a priest!"

Such was the position, moral and physical, of these two prisoners, whose
fate at the moment depended on Monsieur Camusot, examining judge to
the Inferior Court of the Seine, and sovereign master, during the time
granted to him by the Code, of the smallest details of their existence,
since he alone could grant leave for them to be visited by the
chaplains, the doctor, or any one else in the world.

No human authority--neither the King, nor the Keeper of the Seals, nor
the Prime Minister, can encroach on the power of an examining judge;
nothing can stop him, no one can control him. He is a monarch,
subject only to his conscience and the Law. At the present time,
when philosophers, philanthropists, and politicians are constantly
endeavoring to reduce every social power, the rights conferred on the
examining judges have become the object of attacks that are all the more
serious because they are almost justified by those rights, which, it
must be owned, are enormous. And yet, as every man of sense will own,
that power ought to remain unimpaired; in certain cases, its exercise
can be mitigated by a strong infusion of caution; but society is already
threatened by the ineptitude and weakness of the jury--which is, in
fact, the really supreme bench, and which ought to be composed only of
choice and elected men--and it would be in danger of ruin if this pillar
were broken which now upholds our criminal procedure.

Arrest on suspicion is one of the terrible but necessary powers of which
the risk to society is counterbalanced by its immense importance. And
besides, distrust of the magis