Since the judge was unable either to answer these charges or refute them, he left the table in a blind rage, swearing that he was going to leave the house. Next to the sight of a judge in love, the second most laughable spectacle is that of a judge in a rage: his facial muscles, naturally composed by hypocrisy but suddenly obliged to move from that serene state to the contortions of rage, can only do so by violent gradations, the sight of which is comical in the extreme.
When they had been thoroughly amused at seeing the judge vent his spleen, and as they had not yet reached the stage when, if things went according to plan, they would be rid of him forever, they did their best to calm him: they followed at his heels and finally brought him back. By evening, having virtually forgotten all the little torments wherewith he had been beset that morning, Fontanis reverted to his former self, and all was forgotten.
Mademoiselle de Téroze was improving, although she outwardly still looked slightly the worse for wear. Yet she came downstairs for meals, and even joined the others for a short walk now and then. The judge, less assiduous than he had been in times past, because his thoughts were preoccupied only with Lucille, saw nonetheless that he would soon be obliged to devote all his attention to his wife. He therefore resolved to quicken the tempo of his other suit, which at that moment was at a point of crisis. Mademoiselle de Totteville had made it clear that she was ready to yield: the only problem remaining was to find a safe place of assignation. The judge suggested his bachelor quarters; Lucille, who did not sleep in the same bedroom as her parents, readily agreed, the time was set for the following evening, and without wasting a moment Lucille passed the information on to the marquis. They rehearsed her role with her, and the rest of the day was spent without incident.
About eleven o’clock, Lucille, who had been instructed by the judge to precede him into the bedchamber using a key he had given her, excused herself, telling the assembled company that she had a headache, and left the room. A quarter of an hour later, the eager judge also excused himself, but the marquise stopped him by saying that, as a special honor to him that night she wished to accompany him back to his bedchamber. All the others joined in the fun, Mademoiselle de Téroze foremost among them, and without paying the slightest heed to the judge, who was on tenterhooks and was racking his brain to try to figure out how he could escape from this ridiculous display of civility, or at least how he could forewarn the young lady whom he strongly suspected they were going to discover in his bed, they all took candles and, with the men leading the way and the bevy of ladies surrounding Fontanis—they offered him their hands—this absurd cortege slowly wended its way to his bedroom door …
Our ill-fated swain could scarcely breathe.
“I will not be held responsible for anything,” he mumbled. “Think how rashly you are acting. How do you know that the object of my desire is not awaiting me at this very moment in my bed, and if indeed she is, have you considered all the possible ramifications that may result from your indiscretion?”
“As a precautionary measure,” said the marquise, throwing open the door, “come, ye beauty, who, we are told, awaits the judge in his bed: show thyself, be not afraid.”
But imagine everyone’s surprise when the lights next to the judge’s bed cast their rays on an enormous jackass, which was comfortably ensconced beneath the sheets and which, by some agreeable quirk of fate, doubtless delighted by the role it was being made to play, was peacefully asleep on the judicial couch, snoring voluptuously.
“Ah! to be sure,” d’Olincourt cried out, holding his sides with laughter. “My dear Judge, dwell for a moment upon how cool, calm, and collected this animal is: doesn’t it remind you of one of your colleagues in the courtroom?”
But the judge, pleased as punch to have wiggled out of that predicament so easily, the judge, who fancied that this practical joke would serve to cover up the rest and that Lucille, having been the first to discover it, would have done her best to take whatever steps she deemed necessary to keep their intrigue from being discovered, the judge, I say, joined in the general hilarity.
They managed to extricate as best they could the poor jackass—most distressed at having its sleep interrupted—the bed was outfitted with clean white sheets, and Fontanis replaced with all due dignity the most superb jackass the region had to offer.
“Truth to tell,” said the marquise when she saw him safe and sound in bed, “it’s hard to tell the difference. I would never have thought that a jackass and a judge of the High Court of Aix could look so much alike.”
“That, Madame, is where you are sadly mistaken,” replied the marquis. “Do you mean to tell me you are unaware that it is from among these learned creatures that the Court of Aix has always chosen its members? In fact, I would be willing to wager that the one we just saw leave the room was its first presiding judge.”
Fontanis’s first thought the following morning was to ask Lucille how she had managed so cleverly to extricate herself from the embarrassing situation. She, well rehearsed as to her answer, said that when she had realized the joke being played, she wasted no time leaving the room, but not without some concern that she had been betrayed, and this had caused her to spend a terrible night, adding that she would be on pins and needles until she was sure she had not been implicated or compromised. The judge set her mind at ease, then tried to cajole her into joining him for a return match the following night. The modest girl put up some slight show of resistance, which only made Fontanis press his suit with ever greater ardor, until at last everything was arranged in accordance with his desires.
But if their initial assignation had been interrupted by a comic scene, the second was to turn into a veritable disaster. Arrangements similar to those of the preceding night were made: Lucille was the first to retire, and the judge followed suit shortly afterward, this time without anyone interfering. He found her at the appointed tryst and, taking her in his arms, was already on the verge of offering her the unequivocal proof of his passion when the doors suddenly burst open, revealing none other than Monsieur and Madame de Totteville, the marquise, and Mademoiselle de Téroze herself.
“You monster!” she screamed, flying in a fury at her husband, “is this the way you laugh behind my back, at my candor and tenderness!”
“Ungrateful daughter!” Monsieur de Totteville said sternly to his daughter, who had cast herself at her father’s knees. “So this is how you take advantage of the freedom we have given you.”
Meanwhile, the marquise and Madame de Totteville were casting exasperated glances at the guilty couple, as was Madame d’Olincourt herself, but her accusatory gaze was interrupted by her need to catch hold of her sister, who had just swooned in her arms.
It would be difficult to describe the expression on Fontanis’s face as all this was going on: surprise, shame, terror, concern—all these varying emotions were vying simultaneously for the upper hand, which made him look for all the world as stiff as a statue. About this time the marquis arrived, asked what the trouble was, and when he learned what had happened was understandably indignant.
“Monsieur,” said Lucille’s father firmly, “I would never have expected that a girl from a fine family would have to worry about affronts of this sort in your house. I trust you will understand that I cannot under any circumstance tolerate such an insult and that I, my wife and daughter are leaving immediately to seek redress from those by whom we have been wronged.”
“Really, Monsieur,” the marquis d’Olincourt then said curtly to the judge, “you must admit that such scenes are hardly what I have a right to expect. Or do you mean to tell me that the only reason you sought to marry into our family was to dishonor my sister and this house?” Then, turning to Totteville: “I can only applaud your demands for redress, Monsieur, but I nonetheless most earnestly request that you make every effort to avoid a scandal. It is not for this ne’er-do-well that I ask it—he is beneath contempt and deserves only to be punished—but rather for me, Sir, for my family, and above all
for my poor father-in-law who, having placed his full trust in this buffoon, will surely die of grief at having been so severely mistaken.”
“I would like to oblige you, Monsieur,” said Monsieur de Totteville haughtily, leading his wife and daughter away, “but you will allow me to place my honor above these considerations. You will in no wise be compromised, Monsieur, by the complaints I intend to lodge; the only person implicated will be this dishonest fellow”—pointing to Fontanis—-”and now, if you will allow me, I have heard enough and must be off forthwith, for vengeance calls.”
With these words, the three of them strode from the room with such purpose that nothing in the world could have stopped them; they were, so the assembled throng was assured, off to Paris as fast as they could go to present a petition to the court demanding redress for the outrages that Judge Fontanis would surely have committed had he not been stopped in the nick of time.
Meanwhile, back at the château, all was a scene of desolation and despair. Mademoiselle de Téroze, so recently recovered, had taken to her bed again with a fever which, everyone was told, was dangerously high. Monsieur and Madame d’Olincourt were raining insult after insult upon the judge, who, since he had no other sanctuary than this house, given the untenable situation in which he found himself, did not dare respond to the reprimands that were so deservingly addressed to him. Things remained at this pass for three days, when secret information reached the marquis informing him at last that the matter was considered to be of the utmost gravity, that it was being dealt with as a criminal case, and that the court was about to issue a warrant for Fontanis’s arrest.
“What! Without hearing my side of the story?” said the terrified judge.
“Isn’t that the rule?” d’Olincourt replied. “Does the court allow the person for whom a warrant has been issued any means of defense? Isn’t it one of your most cherished customs to sully a defendant’s good name before you hear him out? They are only using against you the same weapons you have used against so many others. After serving for thirty years the cause of injustice, doesn’t it seem reasonable that you should become, at least once in your life, its victim?”
“But all that fuss because of a girl?”
“What do you mean, because of a girl? Don’t you know that these are the most dangerous cases? Was that wretched affair, the very memory of which cost you no less than five hundred lashes in the haunted château, anything else but over some girls? And, if memory serves, didn’t you judge that a matter involving some girls was sufficient cause for you to sully a gentleman’s honor? Hammurabi’s law, Judge, an eye for an eye: ‘tis the compass you steer by; therefore submit to it bravely.”
“Good Heavens!” said Fontanis. “In the name of God, my dear brother, do not abandon me.”
“You may count on us to stand by you,” d’Olincourt replied. “No matter how you may have dishonored us, no matter what cause for complaint we may have against you, you can indeed count on us. But the means are not easy … you know what they are.”
“What are they?”
“The king’s favor. A lettre de cacheta20 That’s the only possibility I see.”
“What a terrible plight!”
“I agree. But what are your other choices? Would you prefer to leave France and be ruined forever, when a few years of prison may well atone for the entire affair? Besides, haven’t you and your fellow judges sometimes resorted to this same means? Wasn’t it by such barbaric advice that you succeeded in finally crushing that nobleman whom the ghosts avenged so well? Didn’t you have the gall—by means of a bold lie as dangerous as it is punishable—to place this poor officer between the Scylla of prison and the Charybdis of disgrace, and to cease your contemptible thunderbolts only upon condition that he would be crushed by those of his king? Consequently, my friend, there is nothing surprising about what I suggest to you: not only is this path one you yourself have traveled, but it is now one you ought to welcome.”
“O dreadful memories!” said the judge, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Who would have believed that Heaven’s revenge would fall upon me almost at the very moment when my crimes were being committed! What I have done is being paid back. All I can do is suffer, suffer in silence.”
Nevertheless, as some help was most urgently required, the marquise urgently advised her husband to leave for Fontainebleau, where the court was then in residence. Mademoiselle de Téroze took no part in this family council: shame and grief without, and Count d’Elbene within, kept her constantly confined to her bedchamber, the door of which was locked to the judge. He had come and knocked on her door on several occasions, and tried by tears and a display of remorse to persuade her to open it, but always to no avail.
So the marquis departed. The journey was not long, and two days later he was back, escorted by two officers and bearing with him an alleged order the very sight of which caused the judge to tremble from head to foot.
“Your timing couldn’t be better,” said the marquise, who pretended that she had received news from Paris while her husband was away at the court. “The case is proceeding with incredible speed, and my friends have written me urging me to help the judge escape without a moment’s delay. My father has been informed of the matter; he is in a state of despair difficult to describe. He enjoins us to serve his friend faithfully, and to depict to him the suffering which this whole matter has caused him … His health, alas, does not allow him to offer any more substantial help than his best wishes, which would have been more sincere had his friend been a whit less foolish … Here is the letter.”
The marquis gave it a cursory glance, and after having lectured Fontanis, who was having a hard time reconciling himself to the thought of going to prison, he turned him over to the guards, who were none other than two sergeants from his own regiment, and urged Fonta-nis to be comforted by the fact that he fully intended to keep in constant contact with him.
“I have,” the marquis said to him, “managed with great difficulty to obtain a fortified château six or seven leagues from here. There you will be under the command of one of my old friends, who will treat you as though you were me. I am sending a personal message with these guards reiterating in the strongest language my requests about how deferential they should be with you. Therefore, go with your mind at rest.”
The judge blubbered like a baby: nothing is as bitter as a conscience-stricken criminal who sees himself beset with all the scourges that he himself has earlier employed … but, nonetheless, there was no delaying the departure any longer. The judge made one final urgent request: permission to kiss his wife good-bye.
“Your wife!” the marquise said to him brusquely. “She is, I am happy to say, not yet that; and in the midst of all our misfortunes, that is our only consolation.”
“So be it,” said the judge. “I shall somehow find the courage to bear this further wound.” And so saying he climbed into the carriage manned by his guards.
The château to which this poor wretch was being taken was part of Madame d’Olincourt’s dowry, and there all was in readiness to receive him. A captain of d’Olin-court’s regiment, a harsh and forbidding man, was picked to play the role of the commanding officer of the prison. He received Fontanis, dismissed the guards, and said harshly to his prisoner as he assigned him to the barest of rooms, that he had received further orders concerning him that were so strict he had no choice but to follow them to the letter.
The judge was left in this cruel situation for almost a month. Not a single visitor came to see him; he was fed only soup, bread, and water; for a bed, he had only some loose straw, and his room was frightfully humid. The only time anyone came to see him was—as is the custom in the Bastille; that is, the way they treat animals in the zoo—to bring him food. During the period of this fateful incarceration, the poor lawyer had ample time for bitter reflections, which no one interrupted. At length the pseudo-commander appeared and, after offering him a few meager words of consolation, spoke to him in the following manner:
“You should have realized, Monsieur,” he said, “that your initial mistake was to have wished to marry into a family so far above you in every respect. Baron de Téroze and Marquis d’Olincourt are gentlemen of the highest nobility, the fairest flowers of all France, and you are but a poor lawyer from Provence, without station or name, without fame or fortune. If only you had taken the time or trouble to give the matter a little serious thought, you would doubtless have realized that it was your bounden duty to inform the Baron de Téroze, who willfully blinded himself to the truth about you, namely that you were no worthy match for his daughter. Moreover, how could you for a moment have imagined that this girl, who is as lovely as love itself, could ever become the wife of a filthy old monkey like yourself? One has a right to be blind to one’s faults, but not to that extent!
“The reflections you must have made during your stay here, Monsieur, have surely convinced you that during the four months you spent at the Marquis d’Olin-court’s you were a laughingstock for everyone, no more. Persons of your station and appearance, your profession and stupidity, your spitefulness and double-dealing, ought to expect nothing but this kind of treatment. By a thousand tricks, one more clever or amusing than the next, they kept you from enjoying the young lady to whom you aspired. They gave you five hundred lashes in a haunted château; they showed you your wife in the arms of the man she adores—which you in your stupidity mistook for a celestial phenomenon; they succeeded in getting you amorously involved with a well-paid whore, who made a complete fool out of you. And, finally, they locked you up in this château, where the Marquis d’Olincourt, the colonel of my regiment, can keep you for the rest of your days—which he will most certainly do if you refuse to sign the paper I have in my hand. May I point out, Sir, before you read it, that as far as the world at large is concerned,” the pseudo-commander went on, “you are merely the man who is a suitor for the hand of Mademoiselle de Téroze, and not her husband. Your marriage took place in the strictest intimacy; what few witnesses there were have agreed to swear they know nothing about it. The priest who performed the ceremony has given back the marriage certificate, which I have here. The notary has likewise returned the marriage contract, which you see before your very eyes. What is more, you have never slept with your wife: your marriage is therefore invalid and is tacitly annulled, with the full consent of all parties, which gives the breach as much validity as though it were sanctioned by the religious and civil laws. What is more, I have here the baron’s statement of withdrawal, as well as his daughter’s. All we need now is yours. The choice is yours, Monsieur: the amicable signature of this document, or the certainty that you will end your days here … That is all I have to say. The floor is yours.”
The Mystified Magistrate Page 9
