Truth to tell, chance or Providence had willed that M. Barkimel should be the Presiding Judge on the day when M. Florent was to be tried.
He was at once filled with a great hope, and thus, borne up by the thought that all was not yet lost, and realizing the disgrace that would be his if he paraded his cowardice before a man whom he had always regarded as his inferior, he managed to draw himself up with an air that was not without a certain dignity.
“Silence!” suddenly yelped a hideous fellow carrying a sword under his arm and acting as usher.
For that matter the entire company carried swords the prisoners excepted, of course.
M. Barkimel himself, in a grey suit, wearing a splendid sash, had a sword on his hip. He was seated at a table which bore various documents, an inkstand, pipes and bottles. Near to him were the assistant judges, and a dozen persons seated or standing formed the jury, two of whom were clad in jackets and aprons.
The Public Prosecutor, unkempt, from whose cruel upper lip drooped a heavy moustache, was seated in a corner on the right at a table laden with official reports.
Facing the Presiding Judge three men guarded a prisoner, seemingly in the sixties. Two civic guards went up to M. Barkimel and asked to be allowed to place before him a petition from the St. Sulpice division in favor of the old man before him, who did not seem to be a very dangerous character, but M. Barkimel, in the loud voice of a drunkard, which M. Florent had never heard before, replied: “Such requests are useless in the case of traitors,” and he poured himself out a large glass of wine, which he emptied at a gulp with his eyes fixed on the Public Prosecutor as who should say: “Good health!”
“It’s horrible. Your sentence amounts to murder,” cried the prisoner.
“You all say the same thing!” exclaimed M. Barkimel. “It’s getting on our nerves.”
The respectable old man was shaken by a just indignation.
“Future generations,” he exclaimed, “will refuse to believe that these crimes were committed in a civilized community under parliamentary government.
“A lot I care for future generations! Take him away,” ordered M. Barkimel after consulting with a look the jury, who raised their hands for the death sentence.
The old man was quickly led out.
“Why, he is perfectly awful,” thought Florent. “What a terrible judge, and how he drinks!... I must let him know I am here.” And he coughed.
M. Barkimel at once looked up and observed M. Florent. He turned pale, and uttered a few incoherent words to the surprise of the assistant judges.
“Our President drinks too much,” said one of the judges as he removed glass and bottle.
The habit of drinking wine at sittings of the Revolutionary Tribunal had arisen as a result of the great heat. At first water was supplied, the temperature of the Court being so stifling that the judges occupying the bench for hours at a stretch suffered real torture. Then lemonade was brought in. In the end each judge used to bring what suited his taste.
“At the National Assembly,” one of the judges pointed out one day, “the representatives of the people are in the habit of sustaining themselves during their speeches with wine or spirits of their own choice — who therefore will have the heart to refuse a glass of wine to a judge needing all his courage if he is to avoid being moved to pity by the hypocritical tears of the enemies of the people?”
But was it indeed excess of wine that changed M. Barkimel’s heart and made him turn pale and splutter for a few moments?
The Public Prosecutor did not share the mistake of the assistant judges in this respect. He must have caught the look that passed between the two men; he must have been warned that some irregularity in the administration of revolutionary justice might occur that day; at any rate, he rose and uttered these threatening words:
“If you, Citizen President, see no objection we will now try the prisoner M. Florent. As the written evidence that I have had placed before the Tribunal clearly demonstrates, he deserve, even in the eyes of those most prejudiced in his favor, ten times the death penalty.”
M. Barkimel was conscious, from the icy tone in which these words were uttered, that they were aimed at least as much against him as M. Florent. He realized that the moment was fraught with as much gravity for the judge as the prisoner; thus, collecting all his strength of mind, he managed to overcome an emotion which might have been fatal to him and declare in a hollow voice:
“I have no objection to the prisoner Florent being tried at once. Guards, bring him before me.” M. Florent was keenly alive to the hands that fell heavily on his shoulder.
“I am innocent,” he cried. “I am a staunch partisan of the Revolution. You will not commit the crime of sullying yourselves by taking my life.
I am confident that my judges will deal fairly with me.”
M. Barkimel regarded this last sentence as horribly compromising. He at once said, frowning, without looking at M. Florent:
“To take the life of an enemy of the people is the one thing in the eyes of true patriots that gratifies them most.”
M. Florent could not believe his own ears. Had M. Barkimel, in fact, addressed those words to him? He felt that his mind was in a whirl, and he feared lest he should lose his self-control once more and come hopelessly to grief.
“I am glad, Citizen President, to observe your readiness to deal with the prisoner Florent. Secret reports led me to believe that you were a friend of his and would make an effort to save him.”
“I?” exclaimed M. Barkimel, placing his right hand on his heart, “I save an enemy of the people? Am I the man to do such a thing — I who have given in this place so many proofs of my patriotism?” And he added without looking at M. Florent: “For that matter, this man is not a friend of mine.”
M. Florent’s teeth chattered. He was not sure now that M. Barkimel would not drop him, repudiate him altogether.
“Secret reports,” went on the Public Prosecutor calmly, “represent you as never being out of each other’s sight.”
M. Barkimel stood up. It seemed as if he himself were the accused. He raised his hand as though to bear witness to the fact that he was being slandered. Of course, he knew M. Florent, but to know a man and to be his intimate friend were two different things.
“I appeal to M. Florent,” he exclaimed. “We have never been able to agree upon anything. Is that not so, M. Florent? I leave it to the prisoner’s good faith.”
“It is true that we have had a few little arguments,” returned the prisoner as if in a dream.
“Admit, sir, that we have wrangled every day like fishwives. If you admit that you will be speaking the truth.”
M. Barkimel was getting heated, for he was growing more and more convinced that the affair might be as disastrous to him as to M. Florent. Viewed in this light, the quarrels of days gone by seemed like so many crimes with which it was his duty to reproach M. Florent. He worked himself up at the recollection of disputes which might be of great use to him now.
“The prisoner should blush to describe as little discussions regular controversies in which I invariably did my utmost to uphold the Revolution.”
“Would you venture to say that I attacked it?” asked M. Florent in a voice strained with anxiety, for he saw that he could no longer rely on his friend Barkimel or on his honesty as a judge.
“I should think I would venture to say so. You spoke of this Revolution, sir, only to ridicule it and compare it with the old French Revolution, which you called the great, the only Revolution — the Revolution that produced the giants of ‘93.”
“That will do, Citizen President,” declared the Public Prosecutor, who seemed to control the sitting. “You may sit down. Everything you say corroborates the facts contained in the official report. This man — I speak of the prisoner — is undeserving of any pity, if pity could enter this Court. Is that not your opinion, Citizen President?”
“Yes, that is my opinion,” returned M. Barkimel in a hoarse whisper.
> And he allowed himself to drop into his seat as if utterly exhausted. His right hand, which held a pen, trembled to such an extent that the pen slipped from his grasp and fell at M. Florent’s feet. M. Florent stooped and picked it up, took two steps forward with a firm and easy bearing, and placed it on the table before M. Barkimel.
“Thank you,” said M. Barkimel, without looking up.
M. Barkimel’s cowardice transformed M. Florent into a hero.
From that moment he surprised the Court by his moral dignity, the clearness of his thoughts, and the calmness with which he strove to defend a life in such obvious jeopardy.
“Gentlemen,” he said, lifting his head, “I am not the man I am alleged to be. I may, indeed, have chaffed the Presiding Judge about the Revolution. If that is a crime you will say so and I am ready to atone for it. But I venture to hope all the same that you will be good enough to grant me my liberty, to which I am attached by necessity and principle.”
A few laughs greeted M. Florent’s words. They marveled at his flippancy.
“It is the Public Prosecutor’s turn to speak,” fumed M. Barkimel.
“The prisoner before you is not an ordinary criminal,” said the man with the heavy moustache after his opening remarks. “We know that he is a friend of Subdamoun, and shouted ‘Long live Subdamoun’ at Versailles while the friends of the people were overcoming the seditious. Therefore it would have been easy to include him in the ‘batch’ of prisoners with Subdamoun at their head soon to be tried before you, and if we have not taken this course it is because M. Florent is, above all, a supporter of the policy of the Rights of Men.”
“The Rights of Men! I have always upheld them,” interrupted M. Florent, “and I should not be here had the Gazette des Clubs published the articles I sent them.”
“Here they are! Do you acknowledge them?” asked the Public Prosecutor.
M. Florent admitted their authorship, and he was struck all of a heap when the Public Prosecutor went on:
“The wretched man confesses!... Need I read these infamous libels to you? They are the lucubrations of an old fossil whose mistaken ideals is a bourgeois Revolution. They preach the freedom of labor, in other words the abominable tyranny of supply and demand. They extol the antiquated triumph of those who did away with the trade guilds and craftsmanship, all those corporations friendly to industry which built up the old France and which the bourgeois Revolution of 1789 destroyed, to hand the citizens of every country over to the monopolists of international finance. With a stroke of the pen he condemns, therefore, the noble efforts by which our admirable labor unions have restored the Right of the olden time — that is to say the right of the State against the individual, against the hideous doctrine of the Rights of Man of 1789 which made us all equal, weak and strong, rich and poor alike without giving the one the means of defending himself against the other. In short, I accuse M. Florent, here present, of having with unimaginable cynicism sung the praises of a Revolution which our own is intended to suppress for ever and of which it desires to wipe out even the memory. I ask you, Citizen President, and you, gentlemen of the jury, if there can be a worse crime in these days than this? It is for you to say what punishment such conduct deserves.”
Every eye was fixed on the Presiding Judge. M. Barkimel opened his mouth and was heard to say clearly:
“Death!”
Each member of the jury repeated the word: “Death!”
And staring wildly around him, M. Barkimel said:
“M. Florent, the Revolutionary Tribunal, after putting it to the jury, sentences you to death.”
He called for some wine. As the civic guards were about to take M. Florent away, a disturbance arose at the back of the Court and M. Florent saw Citizen Talon, his concierge of the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, step forward.
“In the name of the people I ask to be heard,” Talon said, showing a face distorted by every vice. “You have condemned the man Florent to death, and it serves him right. I was the one who denounced him to the police, but he is not the only guilty man here. I ask you all this question: Is not the man who hides a criminal of this sort and tries to help him escape justice at least as guilty as he is?”
“Of course.... Of course.... Quite right. Let’s hear what he has to say,” came from several voices.
“Does not this man deserve death?”
“Worse than death, because he encourages crime,” returned the Public Prosecutor.
“Well, I denounce the man who concealed the prisoner. It was the Presiding Judge,” yelled the concierge, pointing to M. Barkimel.
M. Barkimel put down his glass and turned a death’s head to the concierge.
“I?” he exclaimed. He could say no more. A nervous twitching had seized him from head to foot.
“Yes, you. I saw my tenant Florent enter your flat. I told the civic guards. Your place was searched. They could not find him, but I swear he was there. The prisoner who was your friend, and whom you have had the cowardice to disown and sentence to death can have no further reason for denying the truth. Let him speak out — we will believe him.”
The Public Prosecutor turned to M. Florent and invited him to say yes or no whether the Presiding Judge had offered him this criminal hospitality.
This time M. Barkimel gave a look at M. Florent. And such a look! All that remained of life was concentrated in that look. What a wealth of mute, cowardly, terrified entreaty lay in that glance. But M. Florent did not look at M. Barkimel. He raised his hand and declared:
“I swear that what this man said is false. I swear that I have never been in M. Barkimel’s flat since the outbreak of the Revolution.”
“Very well,” declared the Public Prosecutor. “The matter is settled. The witness will be arrested for making a false declaration against a judge of this Tribunal.”
Loud cheers broke out in Court.
At that moment an elderly warder came forward.
“Monsieur le President, we have received word from the authorities that the prison van is ready, and if you have any condemned prisoners there is an opportunity to take them away at once.”
The Presiding Judge had no need to make answer. The Public Prosecutor declared that M. Florent could be handed over to the executioner. The civic guards took him away.
On the evening of that day, which was filled with so much excitement for M. Barkimel, presiding with such impartiality at the Revolutionary Tribunal, his colleagues were obliged to take him home in a taxi. He seemed to be ill. Some of them suggested that “he had had a drop too much.” In stammering and gloomy tones he thanked the friends of the people for kindly seeing him to his door.
When he was alone he tried to mount the stairs. But he soon came to a stop and sat down on one of the steps. His head seemed to be going round.
At ten o’clock that evening the electric light in the staircase was switched off. He gave a deep sigh and stood up. He was still shaking on his feet. But he did not go into his flat. He went into the street and, hugging the walls, made his way to the “Up-to-date Grocery Stores.”
The street was empty, the shop-front closed, and nothing suggested to the belated wayfarer that the inmates of this respectable house were not enjoying a well-earned repose.
All the same, M. Barkimel stopped at the low door and knocked on the off-chance. M. Hilaire was their friend. M. Barkimel felt an imperative need to talk about M. Florent. The door was softly opened.
“Who’s there?” asked M. Hilaire.
“Let me have a word with you,” begged M. Barkimel in a voice of despair.
Then he stooped and passed through the door into the shop. He sat on a bag of nuts while M. Hilaire closed the door.
A small hand-lamp standing on the counter showed a faint glimmer in the spacious room. A light could be seen, too, in the dining-room, the sashdoor of which was closed. Nevertheless, the sound of someone stirring in this room could be heard.
“You may speak out,” said M. Hilaire. “It’s Mme Hilaire putting t
he things away. Have you brought bad news?”
“Yes,” he returned with a gasp. “M. Florent is dead.”
“Is that why you are in such a state?” asked M. Hilaire, almost with an air of indifference.
“I thought he was your friend as well as mine,” said M. Barkimel, shaking his head. “But I can see there are no friends in these days.”
“In revolutionary times it is a great difficulty to keep them,” agreed M. Hilaire.
“It was I who sentenced him to death.”
“Since you had to try your friend you were bound to sentence him according to his crimes. What offense had poor M. Florent committed?”
“He was a supporter of the Rights of Man. Up to the last moment he bravely defended his opinions.”
“You don’t say so! Supported the Rights of Man! Why, the President of the Committee of Public Safety himself couldn’t have saved him.”
“But I — I ought to have given him a helping hand. May his blood be upon my head.”
“Well, I can’t say anything more,” declared M. Hilaire a little impatiently, “and you must go home to bed, M. Barkimel. Come, good night. Mme Hilaire is waiting for me....”
At that moment a breath of wind, drifting in from outside extinguished the lamp in M. Hilaire’s hand. Only the panes of glass in the dining-room door remained lit up, and instead of Mme Hilaire’s silhouette, M. Barkimel clearly observed the eccentric and terrible figure of the peanut dealer listening behind the door.
“Oh, you are still friends with that awful man. He will bring you bad luck, you see if he doesn’t. Nothing good has happened to us since we’ve met him about everywhere.”
But the little door had closed behind him and he found himself alone in the street. Then tears came to his eyes and he was seized with a fit of rage against M. Hilaire for his shameful indifference to M. Florent’s death.
“That man has no heart,” he said to himself. “What’s the use of telling me I’ve done my duty? It’s no consolation to me to have done my duty.” Talking to himself in this way, he wandered about all night like a drunken man. He could not have said what came to pass between the time of leaving M. Hilaire and reaching the Revolutionary Tribunal, where he arrived attired in his sash of office.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 230
