CHAPTER XX.

The morning after my return to my family, as I sat surrounded with my girls, and endeavoring to make myself their playmate and companion, certain officers of justice belonging to the supreme tribunal of the city entered my apartment. They were sent, as they informed me, to conduct me to prison. My blood at this intelligence mounted into my face.

“To prison?” cried I—“wherefore?—what have I done?—I am no citizen of your state. What is the charge against me? Lead me not to prison: lead me to your chief magistrate!”

“You will be called up for examination, when his honor is at leisure to hear you: in the mean time you must go to prison.”

“Do those who sent you know that I am a native and a gentleman of France? They will be made to repent this insolence. Upon what pretense do they dare to act thus?”

“You will please not to talk of insolence to us. If you do not demean yourself quietly——”

“Silence, fellow!” answered I fiercely. “Lead the way!”

By this time the children, astonished at a scene so alarming and unintelligible to them, began to express their terror in various ways. Julia, who was ready to faint, occupied the attention of her mother. The little Marguerite clung round my knees, and expressed her emotions by shrieks and cries. To see her father about to be torn from her by four strangers, the peculiarity of whose garb of office aggravated the rudeness of their countenances and the peremptoriness of their behavior, was a spectacle which the affectionateness of her nature was unable to endure.

“I will go with you presently,” said I to the officers. “See, how you have terrified the children!”

“Nay, sir, if you will behave civilly, and make it worth our while, we do not desire to hurry you.”

I was stung with the brutal assurance with which they thus set the liberty of a few moments at a price to me. But I checked my impatience. I felt that it would be both foolish and degrading to enter into contention with such wretches. I turned from them proudly, and took my child in my arms.

“I will not be long gone, my love!” said I. “These people have made a mistake, and I shall soon be able to rectify it.”

“I fancy not,” muttered one of them surlily.

“They shall not take you away, papa; that they shall not! I will hold you, and will not let you go!”

“You are a good girl, Marguerite! But I know best what is proper, and you must not think to control me. The men will not do me any harm, child; they dare not. Perhaps I shall be back to dinner, and mama will then tell me how good you have been.”

As I spoke, she looked steadfastly in my face; and then, flinging her arms round my neck, cried, “Good-by, papa!” and burst into a flood of tears.

I embraced the other children and their mother; and, saying to the latter significantly, “Fear nothing; you know I have nothing to fear!”—departed with my conductors.

The way to the citadel lay through the market-place. The scene was already crowded; and I had the mortification to be led along as a criminal, in the midst of a thousand gazing eyes and inquiring tongues. New as every thing connected with my present situation was to me, I had not anticipated this vexation. I was stung with shame and impatience. “To my dungeon!” said I to my conductors sternly. “If you had shown yourself better humored,” cried the most brutal of them, “we would have led you round by the back way.”

The master of the prison was somewhat less a savage than his officers. He knew my person, and had heard of my wealth. “Does monsieur choose the best apartment?” said he. “Any where that I can be alone!” answered I hastily. He hesitated a moment. I looked in his face: “Oh, yes, you will be paid!” He bowed, and showed me to a room.

I shut the door as he retired. What had happened to me was of little importance in itself. The impertinence of bailiffs and thief-takers is of no more real moment than the stinging of a gnat. But I was so utterly unacquainted with scenes of this nature! The pride of rank that swelled within me made every appearance of restraint galling to my sense. From the instant I was able to write, man, no one, except in the voluntary compact of military service, had ever said to me, Go there! or, Do this! And now, was I to be directed by the very refuse of the species? Was I to learn the prudence of not replying to their insults? Was I to purchase, at a stipulated price, their patience and forbearance?—I request the reader to pardon me for troubling him with my noviciate feelings: I soon learned to understand the world—the world of a prison—better!

But, what was of more importance, I was apprehended as a criminal: I had been dragged a prisoner of justice through the streets of Constance; I was, by and by, to be subjected to the interrogatories of the municipal tribunal. I could scarcely credit my senses, that such an indignity had happened to the blood of St. Leon. It is true, I was innocent. I was conscious, whatever might be my imprudences and offenses towards my own family, that I had done nothing to merit the animadversion of public justice. But this was of no consequence. Nothing, in my opinion, could wipe away the disgrace of being interrogated, examined! of having for an instant imputed to me the possibility of being a criminal! I writhed under this dishonor, and felt it as a severer attack than the question, which was comparatively of ceremony and etiquette, that had oppressed me in my residence at Dresden.

The next day, when I was brought up for examination, I had expected to be the complainant, in demanding redress for the injury I had sustained. But I was mistaken.

I entered the room haughtily, and with the air of a man that felt himself aggrieved. Of this however the magistrate took no notice. “Do you know, sir,” said I, “that I am a citizen and a gentleman of France? Are you acquainted with the treatment I have experienced? Have you lent your authority to that treatment?”

“Wait a few minutes,” replied he with an imperious tone, “and I shall be at leisure to attend to you.”

I was silent. After the interval of nearly a quarter of an hour, he resumed—

“You call yourself the count de St. Leon!”

“I do.”

“Perhaps, sir, you are uninformed of the purity with which justice is administered in the city within whose jurisdiction you now stand. Our state is a small one, and its magistrates are therefore enabled to discharge the office of a parent, not only to its proper citizens, but to all strangers that place themselves under its protection.”

“I remember, sir, that seven years ago, I and my wife and four children, sick and unfriended, were upon the point of perishing with hunger within the walls of this city!”—The fact I mentioned was wholly foreign to the point with which I was at present concerned; but the parading arrogance of the man brought it forcibly to my memory, and wrung it from my lips.

“Monsieur le comte,” replied he, “you are petulant. It is not the office of a state to feed the souls it contains; it could not do that without making them slaves. Its proper concern is to maintain them in that security and freedom of action, which may best enable them to support themselves.”

I suppressed the emotions which the tone of this speech excited. I was unwilling to enter into contention with a man whom I regarded as inexpressibly my inferior.

“Is it,” cried I sternly, “a part of the justice you boast of, to drag a man of rank and a stranger from his home, without any intimation of the cause of his being so treated, and then, instead of investigating immediately the charge against him, to send him to prison unheard? I disdain to mention the behavior of your officers: those things naturally grow out of the abuses practiced by their superiors.”

“The mode of our proceeding,” replied he, “depends upon the seriousness of the crime imputed. If a man of distinction labors under a slight accusation only, we then treat him with all proper forbearance and respect. But, when he is suspected of a crime of more than ordinary magnitude, that alters the case. The man who has ceased to respect himself, must look for no respect from others.”

I was for a moment thunderstruck and speechless. At length fiercely I cried, “Produce my accusers!”

“That is not the mode of proceeding in Constance. I have certain questions to propound to you. When you have answered them, we shall see what is to be done next.”

“Carry me before the prince-bishop of your city! If I am to be examined further, let it be by your sovereign!”

“The prince-bishop, moved by the state of our affairs in matters of religion, has been prevailed on to delegate his juridical authority. I am the person to whom the cognizance of your business belongs; and at certain times, aided by my assessors, have the power of life and death within this city. You have had every indulgence to which you are entitled, and it will be your wisdom to be no further refractory.”

“Propose your questions!”

“A person, apparently greatly advanced in years, arrived in the autumn of last year at a miserable farm you at that time cultivated, called the Cottage of the Lake. It is to him that my questions will principally relate.”

I stood aghast. The words of the magistrate were most unwelcome sounds. I remembered that the stranger had said to me, “When I am once buried, speak of me, and, if possible, think of me no more.” I replied with eagerness and alarm—

“Of that person I have nothing to say. Spare your questions: I have no answer to return you!”

“What was his name?”

“I know not.”

“His country?”

“I cannot inform you.”

“It is understood that he died, or in some manner disappeared, while under your protection. Yet in the registers of the church there is no notice of that event. If he died, no application was made for the rites of religion to him dying, or to his body when his spirit had deserted it. You are required to answer, what became of him or his remains?”

“I have already told you, that from me you will obtain no information.”

“One question more, sir. Seven years ago, you tell me, you and your family were perishing with hunger. Soon after, you removed from obscure lodgings in this city to the cottage of the lake, and seemed to be laudably employed in earning for yourself a scanty livelihood with the labor of your hands. But within the last six months the scene is wholly changed. You appear to have suddenly grown rich, and here, and in other parts of Germany, have actually disbursed considerable sums. Whence comes this change?”

The train of questions thus proposed to me, impelled me to a serious reply.

“Monsieur le juge,” said I, “I am a stranger, a native of France, and a man of rank in my own country. I have paid your state the compliment of choosing it for my residence. I have expended my industry, I expend my wealth among you. I have comported myself as a peaceable inhabitant. No action of my life has brought scandal upon your state, or disturbed the peace and tranquility of your affairs. I cannot collect from any thing you have said, that I have any accuser, or that any charge has been alleged against me. Till that happens, I cannot fall under your animadversion. I am a man of generous birth and honorable sentiments. To myself and my own conscience only am I accountable for my expenditure and my income. I disdain to answer to any tribunal on earth an inquiry of this sort. And now, sir, in conclusion, what I demand of you is, first, my liberty; and secondly, an ample reparation for the interruption I have sustained, and the insults to which I have causelessly been exposed.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” said the magistrate. “What you mention may be the rule of administering justice in some states. They may decide, if they think proper, that some open act, apparently of a criminal description, must be alleged against a man, before he can become an object of animadversion to the state. But in Constance, as I have already told you, the government assumes to act the part of a parent to its subjects. I sit here, not merely to investigate and examine definite acts, but as a censor morum; and I should violate the oath of my office, if I did not lend a vigilant attention to the behavior and conduct of every one within my jurisdiction. The city of Constance requires that nothing immoral, licentious, or of suspicious character, shall be transacted within its walls. Your proceedings have escaped notice too long; much longer than they would have done but for your late absence. In cases where what is committed is merely immoral or licentious, we content ourselves with sending the offender out of our walls. But your case is of a complicated nature. It has scandalized all the inhabitants of our virtuous and religious city. Unless you answer my inquiries, and give a clear and satisfactory account of your wealth, I am bound to believe that there is something in the business that will not bear the light. The coincidence of times obliges me to connect the disappearance of your guest, and the sudden growth of your fortune. This connection gives rise to the most alarming suspicions. I have therefore to inform you that, unless you honorably clear up these suspicions by the most ample communication, my duty directs me to remand you to prison, and to assure you that you will not be liberated thence till you have satisfied the whole of my interrogatories.”

“Think deliberately,” answered I, “of your decision before you form it. Your prisons I despise; but I will not suffer my reputation and my honor to be trifled with. I came before you willingly, though I could easily have avoided doing so; because I was eager to clear my fame. I expected accusers, and I knew I could confound accusation. But what is this that you call justice? You put together circumstances in your own mind: you form conjectures; and then, without information, accuser, or oath, without the semblance of guilt, you condemn me to prison, and expect to extort from me confession. In defect of articles of charge I disdain to answer: the only return a man of honor should make to loose conjectures and random calumnies is silence. I am descended from a race of heroes, knights of the cross, and champions of France; and their blood has not degenerated in my veins. I feel myself animated by the soul of honor, and incapable of crime. I know my innocence, and I rest upon it with confidence. Your vulgar citizens, habituated to none but the groveling notions of traffic and barter, are not the peers of St. Leon, nor able to comprehend the views and sentiments by which he is guided.”

“You are mighty well-spoken, monsieur St. Leon,” replied the magistrate, “and your words are big and sounding; but we know that the devil can assume the form of an angel, and that the most infamous and profligate character can pronounce with emphasis sentiments of the purest virtue. You are pleased to decide that the presumptions against you are nothing but calumnies. Is it nothing that, having received a stranger and retained him with you for months, you endeavored to conceal this fact, and never suffered him to be seen by a human creature? Is his final disappearance nothing? Is it nothing that, supposing him to be dead, as he probably is, you denied to his remains the rites of funeral, and refuse to tell what is become of the body? Is it nothing that, upon the death of this stranger, you, who were before in a state almost of penury, suddenly appear to be possessed of unbounded riches? Where is the will of this stranger? In what archives have you deposited the declaration of his wealth? Let me tell you, sir, that these presumptions, which you call nothing, form a body of circumstantial evidence that, in many countries, would have led you to the scaffold as a murderer. But the laws of Constance, which you audaciously revile, are the mildest in the universe. Here we never put a man to death but on his own confession. We simply condemn him to perpetual imprisonment, or until he makes a declaration of his guilt. You refuse to declare the name or country of the man whom you are suspected of murdering, and then have the assurance to boast that no private accuser rises against you. No, sir, we know there can be no private accuser, where the connections of the party can be successfully concealed. But shall this concealment, which is an aggravation of the murder, prove its security? In conclusion, you boast of your blood and heroic sentiments, and rail at our citizens as shopkeepers and merchants. Let me tell you, sir, shopkeepers and merchants though we are, we should scorn to conduct ourselves in the obscure and suspicious manner that you have done. And, now I have taken the trouble to refute your flimsy pretenses, which it was wholly unnecessary for me to do, I have done with you. You know your destination, unless you are prepared immediately to give a satisfactory account of yourself and your proceedings.”

Finding it impossible to make on this man the impression I desired, I declined entering into further parley; and, telling him that I should convey a representation of my case to my native sovereign, and did not doubt soon to make him feel the rashness of his proceeding, I withdrew, in the custody of the officers who had conducted me to the scene of audience. I was, I confess, struck with the coincidence of circumstances, which the magistrate had placed in a fight equally unexpected and forcible, and which I now saw calculated to subject me to the most injurious suspicions. I was not disposed in the smallest degree to yield to the attack, but I felt a desire to act deliberately and with caution. The whole of what I had heard was utterly unforeseen, and it was with peculiar anguish that I became aware of this new consequence of the stranger’s pernicious donation. This was a consequence that no resignation, no abjuration of his bequests could cure; and that must be stood up to with manly courage, if any hope were entertained of averting it.