Complete Works of Emile Zola (1737 page)

Every evening David and Delbos repaired to the large room which Marc had rented in a lonely street, and ardent friends of all classes surrounded them. These formed the little sacred phalanx; each visitor brought some news, contributed suggestions and courage. They were determined that they would not despair. Indeed, after an evening spent together they felt inspirited, ready for fresh encounters. And they were aware that their enemies met in a neighbouring street, at the house of a brother-in-law of Judge Gragnon, who, having been summoned as a witness by the defence, was staying there, receiving all the militant anti-Simonists of the town — a procession of frocks and gowns that slipped into the house as soon as night had fallen. Father Crabot had slept there twice, it was said, and had then returned to Valmarie, where with a great display of humility he had cloistered himself in penitence.

Suspicious characters prowled about that sparsely populated district; the streets were not safe; and, accordingly, when David and Delbos quitted Marc at night, their friends accompanied them home in a band. One night a shot was fired; but the detectives, though on the watch, could find nobody to arrest. The favourite weapon of the priests, however, is venomous slander, moral murder, perpetrated in a cowardly fashion in the dark. And Delbos became the chosen victim. On the very day when the trial was to begin, the number of
Le Petit Beaumontais
which reached Rozan contained an abominable disclosure, full of mendacity, a shamefully travestied story, half a century old, about the advocate’s father. The elder Delbos, though of peasant stock, had become a goldsmith, in a small way, in the neighbourhood of the Bishop’s residence at Beaumont; and the newspaper charged him with having made away with ‘certain sacred vessels which had been entrusted to him for repair. The truth was that the goldsmith, robbed by a woman whom he was unwilling to denounce, had found himself obliged to pay the value of the stolen goods. There had been no prosecution; the affair had remained obscure; but one had to read that filthy print to realise to what depths of malevolence and ignominy certain men could descend. That painful, forgotten, buried misfortune of the father’s was cast in the face of the son with an abundance of spurious particulars, vile imaginings, set forth in language which was all outrage and mire. And the desecrator of the grave, the murderously-minded libeller who wrote those things, had plainly obtained the documents he published from the very hands of Father Crabot, to whom they had been communicated, no doubt, by some priestly archivist. It was hoped that this unexpected bludgeon-blow would strike Delbos full in the heart, assassinate him morally, discredit him as an advocate, annihilate him to such a point that he would have neither the strength to speak nor the authority to gain a hearing in the defence of Simon.

However, the trial began one Monday, a hot day in July. Apart from Gragnon, whom it was intended to confront with Jacquin, the foreman of the first jury, several witnesses had been cited for the defence. Mignot, Mlle. Rouzaire, Daix, Mauraisin, Salvan, Sébastien and Victor Milhomme, Polydor Souquet, the younger Bongards, Doloirs and Savins were all on the list. Fathers Crabot and Philibin, Brothers Fulgence and Gorgias had also been cited, though it was known that the last three would not appear. On the other side the Procureur de la République had contented himself with recalling the witnesses for the prosecution who had given evidence at the first trial. And the streets of Rozan had at last become animated with witnesses, journalists, and inquisitive folk, arriving in fresh batches by each succeeding train. Already at six o’clock in the morning a crowd assembled near the Palace of Justice eager to catch a glimpse of Simon. But a considerable military force having been set on foot the street was cleared, and Simon crossed it between two rows of soldiers, set so closely together that none of the onlookers could distinguish his features. It was then eight o’clock. That early hour had been chosen in order to avoid the oppressive heat of the afterpart of the day when one would have stifled in the court-room.

The scene was very different from that presented by the brand new assize-hall of Beaumont, where a profusion of gilding had glittered in the crude light that streamed through the lofty windows. At Rozan the assizes were held in an ancient feudal castle; the hall was small and low, panelled with old oak, and scarcely lighted by the windows of a few deep bays. One might have thought the place to be one of those dark chapels where the Inquisition pronounced sentence. Only a few ladies could possibly be admitted, and all of them, moreover, wore sombre garb. Most of the seats were occupied by the witnesses, and even the little standing-room usually allowed to the public had to be curtailed. The audience, packed since seven o’clock in that stem and mournful room, preserved a relative silence, through which swept a stealthy quiver. If the eyes of the onlookers remained ardent their gestures were restrained; they had come there for a subterranean execution, a work of suppression which had to be accomplished far from the light, with the least noise possible.

As soon as Marc was seated beside David, who went in with the witnesses, he experienced a feeling of anguish, a stifling sensation, as if the walls were about to crumble and bury them. He had seen all eyes turn in their direction. David, particularly, aroused great curiosity. Then Marc felt moved, for Delbos had just come in, looking pale but resolute amid the evil glances of most of the spectators, who were eager to ascertain if he had been upset by the infamous article which had appeared that morning. However, the advocate, as if arrayed in an armour of valour and contempt, remained for some time standing there, displaying only smiling strength and indifference.

Marc then interested himself in the jurors, scrutinising them as they entered, one by one, anxious as he was to ascertain to what kind of men the great task of reparation was confided. And he perceived the insignificant faces of various petty tradespeople, petty
bourgeois,
with a chemist, a veterinary surgeon, and two retired captains. On all those faces one found an expression of mournful disquietude, the signs of a desire to hide internal perturbation. The worries which had assailed those men since their names had become known had pursued them to that hall. Several had the wan countenances of devotees, of shaven, canting beadles, while others, red and corpulent, looked as if they had doubled their usual ration of brandy that morning in order to instil a little courage into their paunches. Behind them one could divine the entirety of that old priestly and military city with its convents and its barracks; and one shuddered to think that those men, whose minds and consciences had been deformed, stifled, by their surroundings, should be entrusted with such a work of justice.

But a buzzing spread through the hall, and all at once Marc experienced the most poignant thrill of emotion he had ever known. He had not seen Simon since his return, and now he suddenly perceived him, standing behind Delbos. And terrible was the apparition of that bent and emaciated little man, with ravaged features and bald cranium, on which only a few scanty white locks remained. What! that wreck, that puny remnant of a man was his old comrade, whom he had known so vivacious and refined! If Simon had never possessed any great physical gifts, if his voice had been weak, his gestures inelegant, at least a brazier of youth and faith had glowed within him. And the galleys had only given back that poor, broken, crushed being, a mere shred of humanity, in whom nought of the past subsisted save two flaming eyes, which alone proclaimed the invincible will and courage he preserved. One recognised him only by those eyes; and they, too, explained how he had been able for so many years to resist suffering, for their expression told of the world of fancy, of pure ideality, in which he had always lived. Every glance was turned upon him, but he did not seem conscious of it, such was the power he possessed of isolating himself. He gazed at the assembly in an absent-minded way until at last a smile of infinite tenderness came over his face as he perceived his brother David. Marc, who sat beside the latter, then felt him tremble in every limb.

It was a quarter past eight o’clock when the usher’s call rang out, and the Court entered. The assembly arose and then sat down again. Marc, who remembered the violence of the spectators at Beaumont, who from growls had passed to vociferations, was astonished by the heavy quietude preserved by the present onlookers, though he divined that they were swayed by the same passions, and remained mutely eager for slaughter as if they were lying in ambush in some sombre nook. The sight of the prisoner had scarcely wrung a low murmur from them; and now while the three judges took their seats, they relapsed into their attitude of dark expectancy. Again, compared with the rough and jovial Gragnon, the new presiding judge, Guybaraud, surprised one by his perfect courtesy, his unctuous gestures, his insinuating speech. He was a little man, whose manner was all smiles and gentleness, but an odour of the sacristies seemed to emanate from his person, and his grey eyes were as cold and as cutting as steel. Nor was the difference less remarkable between the former Procureur de la République, the brilliant Raoul de La Bissonnière, and Pacart, the present one, who was very long, slender, and lean, with a yellow baked face, as if he were consumed by a desire to efface his equivocal past and make a rapid fortune.

After the first formalities, when the jury had been empanelled, an usher called the name of the witnesses, who, one by one, withdrew. Marc, like the others, had to leave the hall. Then, in a leisurely way, President Guybaraud began to interrogate Simon, putting his questions in a tone of voice that suggested the coldness of a blade, handled with deadly skill and precision. That interminable examination, which lingered over the slightest incidents of the old affair, and insisted on the charge which the inquiry of the Court of Cassation had destroyed, proved quite a surprise. Some clearing of the ground, an examination on the questions set by the supreme jurisdiction, was all that had been expected; but it at once became evident that the Assize Court of Rozan did not intend to take any account of the facts established by that jurisdiction, and that the presiding judge meant to avail himself of his discretionary powers to deal with the entire case from the very beginning. Soon, indeed, by the questions which he asked, one understood that nothing of the old indictment had been relinquished. It was again alleged that Simon had returned from Beaumont by rail, that he had reached Maillebois at twenty minutes to eleven o’clock, and that soon afterwards he had committed the crime. At this point, however, the new version of the Jesuits — necessitated by the discovery at Father Philibin’s — was interpolated, and the prisoner was accused of having procured a copy-slip, of having caused a false stamp to be made, and of having forged on the slip the initials of Brother Gorgias. Thus that childish story, which Gorgias himself had deemed so idiotic that he had admitted the authenticity of the slip and the paraph, was retained. While nothing was abandoned of the original charges, a gross invention was brought forward in support of them; and everything was again based on the famous report of the experts, Masters Badoche and Trabut, who clung to their original statements in spite of Brother Gorgias’s formal admissions. And the Procureur de la République, as if to leave no doubt of his own views, intervened in order to extract precise statements from the prisoner with respect to his denials on the question of the false stamp.

Simon’s demeanour during that long examination was regarded as pitiful. Many of his partisans had dreamt of him as a justiciar, armed with the thunderbolts of heaven, and rising like an avenger from the grave into which he had been thrust by iniquitous hands. And as he answered politely in a voice which still quivered feverishly, and with none of the outbursts that had been anticipated, the disappointment was extreme. His enemies once more began to say that he virtually confessed his crime, the ignominy of which they found stamped upon his unprepossessing countenance. Only at one moment did he become excited, display any passionate fervour. This was when the judge spoke to him’ of the false stamp of which he heard for the first time. It should be added that no proof was supplied respecting that stamp; the prosecution contented itself with relating that an unknown workman had confided to a woman that he had secretly done a curious job for the schoolmaster of Maillebois. Confronted, however, by the sudden violence of Simon, the judge did not insist on the point, particularly as Delbos had risen, prepared to raise an ‘incident.’ And the public prosecutor merely added that, though they had failed to find the unknown workman, he reserved to himself the right of insisting on the serious probability of the alleged occurrence.

In the evening, when David related what had occurred at that first sitting, Marc, who divined some fresh iniquity, felt a pang at the heart. Assuredly the greatest crime of all was now in preparation. He was not astonished by the calm and unobtrusive bearing of Simon, who was confident in the strength of his innocence, and incapable of an outward show of emotion. But he perfectly understood the bad effect which had been produced; while, from the aggressive coldness of the presiding judge, and the importance the latter gave to the most trivial matters, already elucidated, he derived a disastrous impression, a quasi-certainty that a fresh conviction was impending. On hearing him, David, from whom he thought it wrong to hide his anxiety, could only with difficulty restrain his tears, for he also had quitted the Palace of Justice in despair, full of a dreadful presentiment.

However, the following days, which were entirely devoted to the hearing of evidence, brought back some courage and illusion. The former witnesses for the prosecution were first examined, and one again beheld a procession of railway employés and
octroi
officials, who contradicted one another on the question whether Simon, on the night of the crime, had returned to Maillebois by train or on foot. Marc, who wished to follow the case, had asked Delbos to have him called as soon as possible, and this being done he gave evidence respecting the discovery of poor little Zéphirin’s body. He was then able to seat himself once more beside David, who still occupied a corner of the small space allotted to the witnesses. And thus Marc was present at the first ‘incident’ raised by the counsel for the defence, who had retained all his bravery and self-possession in spite of the cruel blow which had lately struck him in the heart.