“Madame,” said the public prosecutor, “Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre is not guilty either of robbery or of poisoning; but Monsieur Camusot has led him to confess a still greater crime.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“He acknowledged,” said Monsieur Camusot in her ear, “that he is the friend and pupil of an escaped convict.  The Abbe Carlos Herrera, the Spaniard with whom he has been living for the last seven years, is the notorious Jacques Collin.”

Madame de Serizy felt as if it were a blow from an iron rod at each word spoken by the judge, but this name was the finishing stroke.

“And the upshot of all this?” she said, in a voice that was no more than a breath.

“Is,” Monsieur de Granville went on, finishing the Countess’ sentence in an undertone, “that the convict will be committed for trial, and that if Lucien is not committed with him as having profited as an accessory to the man’s crimes, he must appear as a witness very seriously compromised.”

“Oh! never, never!” she cried aloud, with amazing firmness.  “For my part, I should not hesitate between death and the disaster of seeing a man whom the world has known to be my dearest friend declared by the bench to be the accomplice of a convict.—­The King has a great regard for my husband——­”

“Madame,” said the public prosecutor, also aloud, and with a smile, “the King has not the smallest power over the humblest examining judge in his kingdom, nor over the proceedings in any court of justice.  That is the grand feature of our new code of laws.  I myself have just congratulated M. Camusot on his skill——­”

“On his clumsiness,” said the Countess sharply, though Lucien’s intimacy with a scoundrel really disturbed her far less than his attachment to Esther.

“If you will read the minutes of the examination of the two prisoners by Monsieur Camusot, you will see that everything is in his hands——­”

After this speech, the only thing the public prosecutor could venture to say, and a flash of feminine—­or, if you will, lawyer-like —­cunning, he went to the door; then, turning round on the threshold, he added: 

“Excuse me, madame; I have two words to say to Bauvan.”  Which, translated by the worldly wise, conveyed to the Countess:  “I do not want to witness the scene between you and Camusot.”

“What is this examination business?” said Leontine very blandly to Camusot, who stood downcast in the presence of the wife of one of the most important personages in the realm.

“Madame,” said Camusot, “a clerk writes down all the magistrate’s questions and the prisoner’s replies.  This document is signed by the clerk, by the judge, and by the prisoner.  This evidence is the raw material of the subsequent proceedings; on it the accused are committed for trial, and remanded to appear before the Criminal Court.”

“Well, then,” said she, “if the evidence were suppressed——?”