The trial lasted five weeks.  All Paris looked on absorbed, as at a drama of the most exciting interest.  Fouquet never appeared so admirable as then, at bay, firmly facing king, ministers, judges, eager for his blood, excited by the ardor of pursuit, and embittered by the roar of applause with which his masterly defence was received out-of-doors.  Even those who knew the Surintendant best were astonished at his courage and his presence of mind.  He seemed greater in his adversity than in his magnificence.  Some of the judges began to waver.  Renard, J., said,—­“I must confess that this man is incomparable.  He never spoke so well when he was Procureur; he never showed so much self-possession.”  Another, one Nesmond, died during the trial, and regretted openly on his death-bed that he had lent himself to this persecution.  The King ordered that this dying speech and confession should not be repeated, but it circulated only the more widely.

“No public man,” Voltaire says, “ever had so many personal friends”; and no friends were ever more faithful and energetic.  They repeated his happy answers in all quarters, praised his behavior, pitied his sufferings, and reviled and ridiculed his enemies.  They managed to meet him, as he walked to and from the Arsenal, where the Commission sat, and cheered him with kind looks.  Madame de Sevigne tells us how she and other ladies of the same faith took post at a window to see “notre pauvre ami” go by.  “M. d’Artagnau walked by his side, followed by a guard of fifty mousquetaires.  He seemed sad.  D’Artagnau touched him to let him know that we were there.  He saluted us with that quiet smile we all knew so well.”  She says that her heart beat and her knees trembled.  The lively lady was still grateful for that compliment.

The animosity which the King did not conceal made an acquittal almost hopeless, but great efforts were made to save the life of the Surintendant.  Money was used skilfully and abundantly.  Several judges yielded to the force of this argument; others were known to incline to mercy.  Fouquet himself thought the result doubtful.  He begged his friends to let him know the verdict by signal, that he might have half an hour to prepare himself to receive his sentence with firmness.

The Commission deliberated for one week,—­an anxious period for Fouquet’s friends, who trembled lest they had not secured judges enough to resist the pressure from above.  At last the court was reopened.  D’Ormesson, a man of excellent family and social position, who had favored the accused throughout the trial, delivered his opinion at length.  He concluded for banishment.  The next judge voted for decapitation, but with a recommendation to mercy.  Next, one Pussort, a malignant tool of the Chancellor, inveighed against Fouquet for four hours, so violently that he injured his case.  His voice was for the gallows,—­but, in consideration of the criminal’s rank, he would consent to commute the cord for the