第80章

"Ah! monsieur," said the old man; "you do know all; you were sent to me by that mysterious lady--tell me her name!""Her name!" exclaimed Godefroid; "her name! Unhappy man! you must not ask it; never seek to find it out.Ah! madame," he cried, taking Madame de Mergi's hand; "tell your father, if he values his peace of mind, to remain in his ignorance and make no effort to discover the truth.""No, tell it!" said Vanda.

"Well, then, she who saved your daughter," said Godefroid, looking at the old man, "who returns her to you young and beautiful and fresh and happy, who rescued her from her coffin, she who saved your grandson from disgrace, and has given you an old age of peace and honor--" He stopped short--"is a woman whom you sent innocent to prison for twenty years; to whom, as a magistrate, you did the foulest wrong; whose sanctity you insulted; whose beautiful daughter you tore from her arms and condemned to the cruellest of all deaths, for she died on the guillotine."Godefroid, seeing that Vanda had fallen back half fainting on her chair, rushed into the corridor and from there into the street, running at full speed.

"If you want your pardon," said Baron Bourlac to his grandson, "follow that man and find out where he lives."Auguste was off like an arrow.

The next morning at eight o'clock, Baron Bourlac knocked at the old yellow door in the rue Chanoinesse, and asked for Madame de la Chanterie.The portress showed him the portico.Happily it was the breakfast hour.Godefroid saw the baron, through one of the casements on the stairs, crossing the court-yard; he had just time to get down into the salon where the friends were all assembled and to cry out:--"Baron Bourlac is here!"

Madame de la Chanterie, hearing the name, rose; supported by the Abbe de Veze she went to her room.

"You shall not come in, tool of Satan!" cried Manon, recognizing their former prosecutor and preventing his entrance through the door of the salon."Have you come to kill Madame?""Manon, let the gentleman come in," said Monsieur Alain.

Manon sat down on a chair as if both her legs had given way at once.

"Monsieur," said the baron in an agitated voice, recognizing Monsieur Joseph and Godefroid, and bowing to Monsieur Nicolas, "mercy gives rights to those it benefits.""You owe us nothing, monsieur;" said the good old Alain; "you owe everything to God.""You are saints, and you have the calmness of saints;" said the former magistrate; "you will therefore listen to me.I know that the vast benefits I have received during the last eighteen months have come from the hand of a person whom I grievously injured in doing my duty.

It was fifteen years before I was convinced of her innocence; and that case is the only one, gentlemen, for which I feel any remorse as to the exercise of my functions.Listen to me! I have but a short time to live, but I shall lose even that poor remnant of a life, still so important to my children whom Madame de la Chanterie has saved, unless she will also grant me her pardon.Yes, I will stay there on my knees on the pavement of Notre-Dame until she says to me that word.I, who cannot weep, whom the tortures of my child have dried like stubble, Ishall find tears within me to move her--"The door of Madame de la Chanterie's room opened; the Abbe de Veze glided in like a shadow and said to Monsieur Joseph:--"That voice is torturing Madame."

"Ah! she is there!" exclaimed the baron.

He fell on his knees and burst into tears, crying out in a heart-rending voice: "In the name of Jesus dying on the cross, forgive, forgive me, for my daughter has suffered a thousand deaths!"The old man fell forward on the floor so prone that the agitated spectators thought him dead.At that instant Madame de la Chanterie appeared like a spectre at the door of her room, against the frame of which she supported herself.

"In the name of Louis XVI.and Marie-Antoinette whom I see on their scaffold, in the name of Madame Elisabeth, in the name of my daughter and of yours, and for Jesus' sake, I forgive you."Hearing those words the old man raised his head."It is the vengeance of angels!" he said.

Monsieur Joseph and Monsieur Nicolas raised him and led him to the courtyard; Godefroid went to fetch a carriage, and when they put the old man into it Monsieur Nicolas said to him gravely:--"Do not return here, monsieur; the power of God is infinite, but human nature has its limits."On that day Godefroid was admitted to the order of the Brotherhood of Consolation.

End