“Why should you weep, Monsieur de Rubempre?  You are, as I have told you, Mademoiselle Esther’s legatee, she having no heirs nor near relations, and her property amounts to nearly eight millions of francs if the lost seven hundred and fifty thousand francs are recovered.”

This was the last blow to the poor wretch.  “If you do not lose your head for ten minutes,” Jacques Collin had said in his note, and Lucien by keeping cool would have gained all his desire.  He might have paid his debt to Jacques Collin and have cut him adrift, have been rich, and have married Mademoiselle de Grandlieu.  Nothing could more eloquently demonstrate the power with which the examining judge is armed, as a consequence of the isolation or separation of persons under suspicion, or the value of such a communication as Asie had conveyed to Jacques Collin.

“Ah, monsieur!” replied Lucien, with the satirical bitterness of a man who makes a pedestal of his utter overthrow, “how appropriate is the phrase in legal slang ‘to UNDERGO examination.’  For my part, if I had to choose between the physical torture of past ages and the moral torture of our day, I would not hesitate to prefer the sufferings inflicted of old by the executioner.—­What more do you want of me?” he added haughtily.

“In this place, monsieur,” said the magistrate, answering the poet’s pride with mocking arrogance, “I alone have a right to ask questions.”

“I had the right to refuse to answer them,” muttered the hapless Lucien, whose wits had come back to him with perfect lucidity.

“Coquart, read the minutes to the prisoner.”

“I am the prisoner once more,” said Lucien to himself.

While the clerk was reading, Lucien came to a determination which compelled him to smooth down Monsieur Camusot.  When Coquart’s drone ceased, the poet started like a man who has slept through a noise to which his ears are accustomed, and who is roused by its cessation.

“You have to sign the report of your examination,” said the judge.

“And am I at liberty?” asked Lucien, ironical in his turn.

“Not yet,” said Camusot; “but to-morrow, after being confronted with Jacques Collin, you will no doubt be free.  Justice must now ascertain whether or no you are accessory to the crimes this man may have committed since his escape so long ago as 1820.  However, you are no longer in the secret cells.  I will write to the Governor to give you a better room.”

“Shall I find writing materials?”

“You can have anything supplied to you that you ask for; I will give orders to that effect by the usher who will take you back.”

Lucien mechanically signed the minutes and initialed the notes in obedience to Coquart’s indications with the meekness of a resigned victim.  A single fact will show what a state he was in better than the minutest description.  The announcement that he would be confronted with Jacques Collin had at once dried the drops of sweat from his brow, and his dry eyes glittered with a terrible light.  In short, he became, in an instant as brief as a lightning flash, what Jacques Collin was—­a man of iron.