An Historical Mystery (The Gondreville Mystery)Balzac, Honoré de
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An Historical Mystery (The Gondreville Mystery)
Balzac, Honoré de
Detective and mystery stories; French fiction -- Translations into English; Historical fiction
At five in the morning of the day after Monsieur de Grandville’s
speech, the senator was found on the high road to Troyes, delivered from
captivity during his sleep, unaware of the trial that was going on or
of the excitement attaching to his name in Europe, and simply happy in
being once more able to breathe the fresh air. The man who was the pivot
of the drama was quite as amazed at what was now told to him as
the persons who met him on his way to Troyes were astounded at his
reappearance. A farmer lent him a carriage and he soon reached the house
of the prefect at Troyes. The prefect notified the director of the jury,
the commissary of the government, and the public prosecutor, who, after
a statement made to them by Malin, arrested Marthe, while she was still
in bed at the Durieu’s house in the suburbs. Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne,
who was only at liberty under bail, was also snatched from one of the
few hours of slumber she had been able to obtain at rare intervals in
the course of her ceaseless anxiety, and taken to the prefecture to
undergo an examination. An order to keep the accused from holding any
communication with each other or with their counsel was sent to the
prison. At ten o’clock the crowd which assembled around the courtroom
were informed that the trial was postponed until one o’clock in the
afternoon of the same day.
This change of hour, following on the news of the senator’s deliverance,
Marthe’s arrest, and that of Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, together with
the denial of the right to communicate with the prisoners carried terror
to the hotel de Chargeboeuf. The whole town and the spectators who had
come to Troyes to be present at the trial, the short-hand writers
for the daily journals, even the populace were in a ferment which can
readily be imagined. The Abbe Goujet came at ten o’clock to see Monsieur
and Madame d’Hauteserre and the counsel for the defence, who were
breakfasting--as well as they could under the circumstances. The abbe
took Bordin and Monsieur Grandville apart, told them what Marthe had
confided to him the day before, and gave them the fragment of the letter
she had received. The two lawyers exchanged a look, after which Bordin
said to the abbe: “Not a word of all this! The case is lost; but at any
rate let us show a firm front.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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