“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. But the smile had not once forsaken Chanlouineau’s lips. CHAPTER XXVIII The abbe had been right in feeling he could trust the officers to whose care he had confided Maurice. Finding their entreaties would not induce him to leave the citadel, they seized him and literally carried him away. He made the most desperate efforts to escape; each step was a struggle. “Leave me!” he exclaimed; “let me go where duty calls me. You only dishonor me in pretending to save me.” His agony was terrible. He had thrown himself headlong into this absurd undertaking, and now the responsibility of his acts had fallen upon his father. He, the culprit, would live, and his innocent father would perish on the guillotine. It was to this his love for Marie-Anne had led him, that radiant love which in other days had smiled so joyously. But our capacity for suffering has its limits. When they had carried him to the room in the hotel where his mother and Marie-Anne were waiting in agonized surprise, that irresistible torpor which follows suffering too intense for human endurance, crept over him. “Nothing is decided yet,” the officers answered in response to Mme. d’Escorval’s questions. “The cure will hasten here as soon as the verdict is rendered.” Then, as they had promised not to lose sight of Maurice, they seated themselves in gloomy silence.