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Page 70
A circumstance which occurs in this part of the Count's story, seems to
point him out as a fated man. His mother, and his brother, the Prince
Van Horn, had received intelligence some time before at Baussigny, of
the dissolute life the Count was leading at Paris, and of his losses at
play. They despatched a gentleman of the prince's household to Paris, to
pay the debts of the Count, and persuade him to return to Flanders; or,
if he should refuse, to obtain an order from the Regent for him to quit
the capital. Unfortunately the gentleman did not arrive at Paris until
the day after the murder.
The news of the Count's arrest and imprisonment on a charge of murder,
caused a violent sensation among the high aristocracy. All those
connected with him, who had treated him hitherto with indifference,
found their dignity deeply involved in the question of his guilt or
innocence. A general convocation was held at the hotel of the Marquis de
Cr�qui, of all the relatives and allies of the house of Horn. It was
an assemblage of the most proud and aristocratic personages of Paris.
Inquiries were made into the circumstances of the affair. It was
ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the Jew was dead, and that he had been
killed by several stabs of a poniard. In escaping by the window, it was
said that the Count had fallen, and been immediately taken; but that De
Mille had fled through the streets, pursued by the populace, and had
been arrested at some distance from the scene of the murder; that the
Count had declared himself innocent of the death of the Jew, and that
he had risked his own life in endeavoring to protect him; but that De
Mille, on being brought back to the tavern, confessed to a plot to
murder the broker, and rob him of his pocket-book, and inculpated the
Count in the crime.
Another version of the story was, that the Count Van Horn had deposited
with the broker, bank shares to the amount of eighty-eight thousand
livres; that he had sought him in this tavern, which was one of his
resorts, and had demanded the shares; that the Jew had denied the
deposit; that a quarrel had ensued, in the course of which the Jew
struck the Count in the face; that the latter, transported with rage,
had snatched up a knife from a table, and wounded the Jew in the
shoulder; and that thereupon De Mille, who was present, and who had
likewise been defrauded by the broker, fell on him, and despatched him
with blows of a poniard, and seized upon his pocket-book; that he had
offered to divide the contents of the latter with the Count, _pro rata_,
of what the usurer had defrauded them; that the latter had refused the
proposition with disdain, and that, at a noise of persons approaching,
both had attempted to escape from the premises, but had been taken.
Regard the story in any way they might, appearances were terribly
against the Count, and the noble assemblage was in great consternation.
What was to be done to ward off so foul a disgrace and to save their
illustrious escutcheons from this murderous stain of blood? Their
first attempt was to prevent the affair from going to trial, and their
relative from being dragged before a criminal tribunal, on so horrible
and degrading a charge. They applied, therefore, to the Regent, to
intervene his power; to treat the Count as having acted under an access
of his mental malady; and to shut him up in a madhouse. The Regent was
deaf to their solicitations. He replied, coldly, that if the Count was a
madman, one could not get rid too quickly of madmen who were furious in
their insanity. The crime was too public and atrocious to be hushed up
or slurred over; justice must take its course.
Seeing there was no avoiding the humiliating scene of a public trial,
the noble relatives of the Count endeavored to predispose the minds of
the magistrates before whom he was to be arraigned. They accordingly
made urgent and eloquent representations of the high descent, and noble
and powerful connexions of the Count; set forth the circumstances of his
early history; his mental malady; the nervous irritability to which he
was subject, and his extreme sensitiveness to insult or contradiction.
By these means they sought to prepare the judges to interpret every
thing in favor of the Count, and, even if it should prove that he had
inflicted the mortal blow on the usurer, to attribute it to access of
insanity, provoked by insult.
To give full effect to these representations, the noble conclave
determined to bring upon the judges the dazzling rays of the whole
assembled aristocracy. Accordingly, on the day that the trial took
place, the relations of the Count, to the number of fifty-seven persons,
of both sexes, and of the highest rank, repaired in a body to the Palace
of Justice, and took their stations in a long corridor which led to the
court-room. Here, as the judges entered, they had to pass in review this
array of lofty and noble personages, who saluted them mournfully and
significantly, as they passed. Any one conversant with the stately pride
and jealous dignity of the French noblesse of that day, may imagine the
extreme state of sensitiveness that produced this self-abasement. It was
confidently presumed, however, by the noble suppliants, that having once
brought themselves to this measure, their influence over the tribunal
would be irresistible. There was one lady present, however, Madame de
Beauffremont, who was affected with the Scottish gift of second sight,
and related such dismal and sinister apparitions as passing before
her eyes, that many of her female companions were filled with doleful
presentiments.
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