Honoré de Balzac

“ True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther's existence had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in a woman rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of meanness, to which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly. Indeed, for the last month the Countess would have given ten years of her life to have Lucien again for one week. At last she had even resigned herself to accept Esther as her rival, just when the news of her lover's arrest had come like the last trump on this paroxysm of devotion. ”

“ Tell me, Diane, what have you done?" cried the Duchess, starting up like a fawn, and, seizing the Duchess by the shoulders, she melted into tears.
"Come, come, Leontine; there are occasions when women like us must not cry, but act," said the Duchess, forcing the Countess to sit down on the sofa by her side.
Asie studied the Countess' face with the scrutiny peculiar to those old hands, which pierces to the soul of a woman as certainly as a surgeon's instrument probes a wound!—the sorrow that engraves ineradicable lines on the heart and on the features. ”

“ Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, "if you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged to do in the interests of justice and truth."
Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer's very voice as he spoke the words "Monsieur l'Abbe." The man's face never changed; Camusot had looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in Machiavellian dissimulation. ”

“ The taper in which he had burned the note was still alight, and he used it to seal up the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's notes to Lucien—about thirty in all—and Madame de Serizy's somewhat voluminous correspondence.
Then he waited on the public prosecutor.
The Palais de Justice is a perplexing maze of buildings piled one above another, some fine and dignified, others very mean, the whole disfigured by its lack of unity. The Salle des Pas-Perdus is the largest known hall, but its nakedness is hideous, and distresses the eye. This vast Cathedral of the Law crushes the Supreme Court. ”

“ A physician may explain how it is that these ladies of fashion, whose strength never finds employment, reveal such powers in the critical moments of life.
The Countess rushed so swiftly through the archway to the wicket-gate that the gendarme on sentry did not see her pass. She flew at the barred gate like a feather driven by the wind, and shook the iron bars with such fury that she broke the one she grasped. The bent ends were thrust into her breast, making the blood flow, and she dropped on the ground, shrieking, "Open it, open it!" ”

“ And thus, while the prison vans were conveying Jacques Collin and Lucien to the Conciergerie, the examining judge, having breakfasted, was making his way across Paris on foot, after the unpretentious fashion of Parisian magistrates, to go to his chambers, where all the documents in the case were laid ready for him.
This was the way of it: Every examining judge has a head-clerk, a sort of sworn legal secretary—a race that perpetuates itself without any premiums or encouragement, producing a number of excellent souls in whom secrecy is natural and incorruptible. ”

“ The gendarmes placed the moribund prisoner on a chair facing the window in Monsieur Camusot's room; he was sitting in his place in front of his table. Coquart, pen in hand, had a little table to himself a few yards off.
The aspect of a magistrate's chambers is not a matter of indifference; and if this room had not been chosen intentionally, it must be owned that chance had favored justice. An examining judge, like a painter, requires the clear equable light of a north window, for the criminal's face is a picture which he must constantly study. ”

“ It was about two o'clock when Monsieur Camusot saw Lucien de Rubempre come in, pale, worn, his eyes red and swollen, in short, in a state of dejection which enabled the magistrate to compare nature with art, the really dying man with the stage performance. His walk from the Conciergerie to the judge's chambers, between two gendarmes, and preceded by the usher, had put the crowning touch to Lucien's despair. It is the poet's nature to prefer execution to condemnation. ”

“ Madame du Chatelet had said that Lucien deserved a thousand deaths for having half killed his mother and his sister.
"Then she spoke of a vacancy in the Supreme Court—she knows the Keeper of the Seals. 'Your husband, madame, has a fine opportunity of distinguishing himself,' she said in conclusion—and that is all."
"We distinguish ourselves every day when we do our duty," said Camusot.
"You will go far if you are always the lawyer even to your wife," cried Madame Camusot. ”

“ And yet, as every man of sense will own, that power ought to remain unimpaired; in certain cases, its exercise can be mitigated by a strong infusion of caution; but society is already threatened by the ineptitude and weakness of the jury—which is, in fact, the really supreme bench, and which ought to be composed only of choice and elected men—and it would be in danger of ruin if this pillar were broken which now upholds our criminal procedure.
Arrest on suspicion is one of the terrible but necessary powers of which the risk to society is counterbalanced by its immense importance. ”

“ At this moment Coquart came in to tell Monsieur Camusot that the public prosecutor expected him.
Oppressed by the blunder he had committed, in view of his ambitions, though to the better ends of justice, the lawyer, in whom seven years' experience had perfected the sharpness that comes to a man who in his practice has had to measure his wits against the grisettes of Paris, was anxious to have some shield against the resentment of two women of fashion. ”

“ No human authority—neither the King, nor the Keeper of the Seals, nor the Prime Minister, can encroach on the power of an examining judge; nothing can stop him, no one can control him. He is a monarch, subject only to his conscience and the Law. At the present time, when philosophers, philanthropists, and politicians are constantly endeavoring to reduce every social power, the rights conferred on the examining judges have become the object of attacks that are all the more serious because they are almost justified by those rights, which, it must be owned, are enormous. ”

“ Persons who have never had anything to do with the action of the law usually have the darkest notions as to the meaning of solitary or secret confinement. Ideas as to the treatment of criminals have not yet become disentangled from the old pictures of torture chambers, of the unhealthiness of a prison, the chill of stone walls sweating tears, the coarseness of the jailers and of the food—inevitable accessories of the drama ”

“ Monsieur Camusot was resisting?" said the public prosecutor, laughing too. "He is a brave man indeed; I should not dare resist the Countess."
And thus for the moment this serious affair was no more than a pretty woman's jest, at which Camusot himself must laugh.
But Monsieur de Granville saw one man who was not amused. Not a little alarmed by the Comte de Serizy's attitude and expression, his friend led him aside. ”

“ And I beg you, monsieur, to grant me a favor—namely, to set Lucien at liberty forthwith."
"My duty forbids it," said Camusot very good-naturedly; "but if a sinner may make a compromise with heaven, justice too has its softer side, and if you can give me sufficient reasons—speak; your words will not be taken down."
"Well, then," Jacques Collin went on, taken in by Camusot's apparent goodwill, "I know what that poor boy is suffering at this moment; he is capable of trying to kill himself when he finds himself a prisoner——"
"Oh! as to that!" said Camusot with a shrug. ”

“ Magistrates, in love with truth, are like jealous women; they give way to a thousand hypotheses, and probe them with the dagger-point of suspicion, as the sacrificing priest of old eviscerated his victims; thus they arrive, not perhaps at truth, but at probability, and at last see the truth beyond. A woman cross-questions the man she loves as the judge cross-questions a criminal. ”

“ The more this prisoner—whose identity was not yet ascertained—pointed to clouds on the horizon in the event of Lucien's being examined, the more necessary did the interrogatory seem to Camusot. Even if this formality had not been required by the Code and by common practice, it was indispensable as bearing on the identification of the Abbe Carlos. There is in every walk of life the business conscience. In default of curiosity Camusot would have examined Lucien as he had examined Jacques Collin, with all the cunning which the most honest magistrate allows himself to use in such cases. ”

“ The sheriff and the clerk calmly carried out the formalities of the consignment to prison.
"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin to the Governor in broken French, "I am, as you see, a dying man. Pray, if you can, tell that examining judge as soon as possible that I crave as a favor what a criminal must most dread, namely, to be brought before him as soon as he arrives; for my sufferings are really unbearable, and as soon as I see him the mistake will be cleared up——"
As an universal rule every criminal talks of a mistake. ”

“ Asie made him tell her all about the Palais, which she knew more intimately than the lawyer did. Finally, she inquired at what hour Monsieur Camusot would arrive.
"Well, the examining judges generally are here by about ten o'clock."
"It is now a quarter to ten," said she, looking at a pretty little watch, a perfect gem of goldsmith's work, which made Massol say to himself:
"Where the devil will Fortune make herself at home next!"
At this moment Asie had come to the dark hall looking out on the yard of the Conciergerie, where the ushers wait. ”

“ At this instant Asie and her lawyer were exactly in front of the window of the guardroom whence the gendarmes could observe the gate of the Conciergerie. The gendarmes, brought up to respect the defenders of the widow and the orphan, were aware too of the prerogative of the gown, and for a few minutes allowed the Baroness to remain there escorted by a pleader. Asie listened to the terrible tales which a young lawyer is ready to tell about that prison-gate. She would not believe that those who were condemned to death were prepared for the scaffold behind those bars ”

“ This hesitancy startled the magistrate.
"It is his build, his height," said the agent. "Oh! yes, it is you, Jacques Collin!" he went on, as he examined his eyes, forehead, and ears. "There are some things which no disguise can alter. . . . Certainly it is he, Monsieur Camusot. Jacques has the scar of a cut on his left arm. Take off his coat, and you will see . . ."
Jacques Collin was again obliged to take off his coat; Bibi-Lupin turned up his sleeve and showed the scar he had spoken of.
"It is the scar of a bullet," replied Don Carlos Herrera. "Here are several more." ”

“ This was so serious a matter that it put Camusot's intentions out of his head.
"Show her in," said he.
"Beg your pardon; pray excuse me, gentlemen all," said the woman, courtesying to the judge and the Abbe Carlos by turns. "We were so worried by the Law—my husband and me—the twice when it has marched into our house, that we had forgotten a letter that was lying, for Monsieur Lucien, in our chest of drawers, which we paid ten sous for it, though it was posted in Paris, for it is very heavy, sir. Would you please to pay me back the postage? For God knows when we shall see our lodgers again!" ”

“ On seeing the Governor of the prison, the gate was opened, and the Countess was carried into the office, but she stood up and fell on her knees, clasping her hands.
"Only to see him—to see him! Oh! I will do no wrong! But if you do not want to see me die on the spot, let me look at Lucien dead or living.—Ah, my dear, are you here? Choose between my death and——"
She sank in a heap.
"You are kind," she said; "I will always love you——"
"Carry her away," said Monsieur de Bauvan.
"No, we will go to Lucien's cell," said Monsieur de Granville, reading a purpose in Monsieur de Serizy's wild looks. ”

“ Lucien had misapprehended, to his cost, the law of cohesion, which required him to be silent and leave Jacques Collin to protect himself; nay, more, he had accused him. In his own interests the man ought always to be, to him, Carlos Herrera.
Monsieur Camusot was rejoicing in his triumph; he had secured two criminals. He had crushed with the hand of justice one of the favorites of fashion, and he had found the undiscoverable Jacques Collin. He would be regarded as one of the cleverest of examining judges. So he left his prisoner in peace ”