“I have no wish to offend the court,” replied Patience.  “I would merely observe that a man may refuse to submit to the orders of the court from conscientious motives which the court can legally condemn, but which each judge, personally, can understand and excuse.  I say, then, that I could not persuade myself of Bernard de Mauprat’s guilt; my ears alone knew of it; this was not enough for me.  Pardon me, gentlemen, I, too, am a judge.  Make inquiries about me; in my village they call me ’the great judge.’  When my fellow-villagers ask me to decide some tavern dispute or the boundary of some field, I do not so much listen to their opinions as my own.  In judging a man one must take account of more than a single little act.  Many previous ones will help to show the truth or falsity of the last that is imputed to him.  Thus, being unable to believe that Bernard was a murderer, and having heard more than a dozen people, whom I consider incapable of giving false evidence, testify to the fact that a monk ‘bearing a resemblance to the Mauprats’ had been prowling about the country, and having myself seen this monk’s back and habit as he was passing through Pouligny on the morning of the event, I wished to discover if he was in Varenne; and I learnt that he was still there; that is to say, after leaving it, he had returned about the time of the trial last month.  And, what is more, I learnt that he was acquainted with John Mauprat.  Who can this monk be?  I asked myself; why does the very sight of him frighten all the people in the country?  What is he doing in Varenne?  If he belongs to the Carmelite convent, why does he not wear their habit?  If he is of the same order as John, why is he not staying with him at the Carmelites?  If he is collecting money, why, after making a collection in one place, does he not move on to another, instead of returning and bothering people who have given him money only the day before?  If he is a Trappist and does not want to stay with the Carmelites like the other, why does he not go back to his own convent?  What is this wandering monk?  And how does John Mauprat, who has told several people that he does not know him, know him so well that they lunch together from time to time in a tavern at Crevant?  I made up my mind, then, to give evidence, though it might, in a measure, do harm to M. Bernard, so as to be able to say what I am now saying, even if it should be of no use.  But as you never allow witnesses sufficient time to try to verify what they have reason to believe, I started off immediately for my woods, where I live like the foxes, with a determination not to quit them until I had discovered what this monk was doing in the country.  So I put myself on his track and I have discovered who he is; he is the murderer of Edmee de Mauprat; his name is Antony Mauprat.”

This revelation caused a great stir on the bench and among the public.  Every one looked around for John Mauprat, whose face was nowhere to be seen.