Just as Monsieur de Granville had ended giving his instructions to the young secretary, the Governor of the Conciergerie came in, and the expression of his face was such as to give the public prosecutor a presentiment of disaster.
"Have you met Monsieur Camusot?" he asked.
"No, monsieur," said the Governor; "his clerk Coquart instructed me to give the Abbe Carlos a private room and to liberate Monsieur de Rubempre—but it is too late."
"Good God! what has happened?"
"Here, monsieur, is a letter for you which will explain the catastrophe. The warder on duty in the prison-yard heard a noise of breaking glass in the upper room, and Monsieur Lucien's next neighbor shrieking wildly, for he heard the young man's dying struggles. The warder came to me pale from the sight that met his eyes. He found the prisoner hanged from the window bar by his necktie."
Though the Governor spoke in a low voice, a fearful scream from Madame de Serizy showed that under stress of feeling our faculties are incalculably keen. The Countess heard, or guessed. Before Monsieur de Granville could turn round, or Monsieur de Bauvan or her husband could stop her, she fled like a flash out of the door, and reached the Galerie Marchande, where she ran on to the stairs leading out to the Rue de la Barillerie.
A pleader was taking off his gown at the door of one of the shops which from time immemorial have choked up this arcade, where shoes are sold, and gowns and caps kept for hire.
The Countess asked the way to the Conciergerie.
"Go down the steps and turn to the left. The entrance is from the Quai de l'Horloge, the first archway."
"That woman is crazy," said the shop-woman; "some one ought to follow her."
But no one could have kept up with Leontine; she flew.
A physician may explain how it is that these ladies of fashion, whose strength never finds employment, reveal such powers in the critical moments of life.
The Countess rushed so swiftly through the archway to the wicket-gate that the gendarme on sentry did not see her pass. She flew at the barred gate like a feather driven by the wind, and shook the iron bars with such fury that she broke the one she grasped. The bent ends were thrust into her breast, making the blood flow, and she dropped on the ground, shrieking, "Open it, open it!" in a tone that struck terror into the warders.
The gatekeepers hurried out.
"Open the gate—the public prosecutor sent me—to save the dead man!——"
While the Countess was going round by the Rue de la Barillerie and the Quai de l'Horloge, Monsieur de Granville and Monsieur de Serizy went down to the Conciergerie through the inner passages, suspecting Leontine's purpose; but notwithstanding their haste, they only arrived in time to see her fall fainting at the outer gate, where she was picked up by two gendarmes who had come down from the guardroom.
On seeing the Governor of the prison, the gate was opened, and the Countess was carried into the office, but she stood up and fell on her knees, clasping her hands.
"Only to see him—to see him! Oh! I will do no wrong! But if you do not want to see me die on the spot, let me look at Lucien dead or living.—Ah, my dear, are you here? Choose between my death and——"
She sank in a heap.
"You are kind," she said; "I will always love you——"
"Carry her away," said Monsieur de Bauvan.
"No, we will go to Lucien's cell," said Monsieur de Granville, reading a purpose in Monsieur de Serizy's wild looks.
And he lifted up the Countess, and took her under one arm, while Monsieur de Bauvan supported her on the other side.
"Monsieur," said the Comte de Serizy to the Governor, "silence as of the grave about all this."
"Be easy," replied the Governor; "you have done the wisest thing.—If this lady——"
"She is my wife."
"Oh! I beg your pardon. Well, she will certainly faint away when she sees the poor man, and while she is unconscious she can be taken home in a carriage.
"That is what I thought," replied the Count. "Pray send one of your men to tell my servants in the Cour de Harlay to come round to the gate. Mine is the only carriage there."
"We can save him yet," said the Countess, walking on with a degree of strength and spirit that surprised her friends. "There are ways of restoring life——"
And she dragged the gentlemen along, crying to the warder:
"Come on, come faster—one second may cost three lives!"
When the cell door was opened, and the Countess saw Lucien hanging as though his clothes had been hung on a peg, she made a spring towards him as if to embrace him and cling to him; but she fell on her face on the floor with smothered shrieks and a sort of rattle in her throat.
Five minutes later she was being taken home stretched on the seat in the Count's carriage, her husband kneeling by her side. Monsieur de Bauvan went off to fetch a doctor to give her the care she needed.
The Governor of the Conciergerie meanwhile was examining the outer gate, and saying to his clerk:
"No expense was spared; the bars are of wrought iron, they were properly tested, and cost a large sum; and yet there was a flaw in that bar."
Monsieur de Granville on returning to his room had other instructions to give to his private secretary. Massol, happily had not yet arrived.
Soon after Monsieur de Granville had left, anxious to go to see Monsieur de Serizy, Massol came and found his ally Chargeboeuf in the public prosecutor's Court.
"My dear fellow," said the young secretary, "if you will do me a great favor, you will put what I dictate to you in your Gazette to-morrow under the heading of Law Reports; you can compose the heading. Write now."
And he dictated as follows:—
"It has been ascertained that the Demoiselle Esther Gobseck killed
herself of her own free will.
"Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre satisfactorily proved an alibi, and
his innocence leaves his arrest to be regretted, all the more
because just as the examining judge had given the order for his
release the young gentleman died suddenly."
"I need not point out to you," said the young lawyer to Massol, "how necessary it is to preserve absolute silence as to the little service requested of you."
"Since it is you who do me the honor of so much confidence," replied Massol, "allow me to make one observation. This paragraph will give rise to odious comments on the course of justice——"
"Justice is strong enough to bear them," said the young attache to the Courts, with the pride of a coming magistrate trained by Monsieur de Granville.
"Allow me, my dear sir; with two sentences this difficulty may be avoided."
And the journalist-lawyer wrote as follows:—
"The forms of the law have nothing to do with this sad event. The
post-mortem examination, which was at once made, proved that
sudden death was due to the rupture of an aneurism in its last
stage. If Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre had been upset by his
arrest, death must have ensued sooner. But we are in a position to
state that, far from being distressed at being taken into custody,
the young man, whom all must lament, only laughed at it, and told
those who escorted him from Fontainebleau to Paris that as soon as
he was brought before a magistrate his innocence would be
acknowledged."
"That saves it, I think?" said Massol.
"You are perfectly right."
"The public prosecutor will thank you for it to-morrow," said Massol slyly.
Now to the great majority, as to the more choice reader, it will perhaps seem that this Study is not completed by the death of Esther and of Lucien; Jacques Collin and Asie, Europe and Paccard, in spite of their villainous lives, may have been interesting enough to make their fate a matter of curiosity.
The last act of the drama will also complete the picture of life which this Study is intended to present, and give the issue of various interests which Lucien's career had strangely tangled by bringing some ignoble personages from the hulks into contact with those of the highest rank.
Thus, as may be seen, the greatest events of life find their expression in the more or less veracious gossip of the Paris papers. And this is the case with many things of greater importance than are here recorded.