All this occupied scarcely ten seconds.

“What is the cause of this disturbance?” inquired the duke, looking angrily over the audience.

No one uttered a word.

“At the least noise the hall shall be cleared,” added M. de Sairmeuse.  “And you, prisoner, what have you to say in self-justification, after this crushing accusation by Mademoiselle de Courtornieu?”

“Nothing,” murmured the baron.

“So you confess your guilt?”

Once outside, the abbe confided Maurice to the care of three officers, who promised to go with him, to carry him by main force, if need be, to the hotel, and keep him there.

Relieved on this score, the priest re-entered the hall just in time to see the baron seat himself without making any response, thus indicating that he had relinquished all intention of defending his life.

Really, what could he say?  How could he defend himself without betraying his son?

Until now there had not been one person who did not believe in the baron’s entire innocence.  Could it be that he was guilty?  His silence must be accepted as a confession of guilt; at least, some present believed so.

Baron d’Escorval appeared to be guilty.  Was that not a sufficiently great victory for the Duc de Sairmeuse?

He turned to the lawyers, and with an air of weariness and disdain he said: 

“Now speak, since it is absolutely necessary; but no long phrases!  We should have finished here an hour ago.”

The oldest lawyer rose, trembling with indignation, ready to dare anything for the sake of giving free utterance to his thought, but the baron checked him.

“Do not try to defend me,” he said, calmly; “it would be labor wasted.  I have only a word to say to my judges.  Let them remember what the noble and generous Marshal Moncey wrote to the King:  ’The scaffold does not make friends.’”

This recollection was not of a nature to soften the hearts of the judges.  The marshal, for that saying, had been deprived of his office, and condemned to three months’ imprisonment.

As the advocates made no further attempt to argue the case, the commission retired to deliberate.  This gave M. d’Escorval an opportunity to speak with his defenders.  He shook them warmly by the hand, and thanked them for their devotion and for their courage.

The good man wept.

Then the baron, turning to the oldest among them, quickly and in a low voice said: 

“I have a last favor to ask of you.  When the sentence of death shall have been pronounced upon me, go at once to my son.  You will say to him that his dying father commands him to live; he will understand you.  Tell him it is my last wish; that he live—­live for his mother!”

He said no more; the judges were returning.

Of the thirty prisoners, nine were declared not guilty, and released.

The remaining twenty-one, and M. d’Escorval and Chanlouineau were among the number, were condemned to death.