Twenty-two heads have fallen under the blade of the law; only one of the guilty persons is now left, and she is a young woman, a minor, not twenty years of age.Will not the Emperor Napoleon the Great grant her life, and give her time in which to repent? Is not that to share the part of God?
For Henriette Lechantre, wife of Bryond des Tour-Minieres,--Her defender, Bordin, Barrister of the Lower Court of the Department of the Seine.
This dreadful drama disturbed the little sleep that Godefroid took.He dreamed of that penalty of death such as the physician Guillotin has made it with a philanthropic object.Through the hot vapors of a nightmare he saw a young woman, beautiful, enthusiastic, enduring the last preparations, drawn in that fatal tumbril, mounting the scaffold, and crying out, "Vive le roi!"Eager to know the whole, Godefroid rose at dawn, dressed, and paced his room; then stood mechanically at his window gazing at the sky, while his thoughts reconstructed this drama in many volumes.Ever, on that darksome background of Chouans, peasants, country gentlemen, rebel leaders, spies, and officers of justice, he saw the vivid figures of the mother and the daughter detach themselves; the daughter misleading the mother; the daughter victim of a monster; victim, too, of her passion for one of those bold men whom, later, we have glorified as heroes, and to whom even Godefroid's imagination lent a likeness to the Charettes and the Georges Cadoudals,--those giants of the struggle between the Republic and the Monarchy.
As soon as Godefroid heard the goodman Alain stirring in the room above him, he went there; but he had no sooner opened the door than he closed it and went back to his own apartment.The old man, kneeling by his chair, was saying his morning prayer.The sight of that whitened head, bowed in an attitude of humble reverence, reminded Godefroid of his own forgotten duties, and he prayed fervently.
"I expected you," said the kind old man, when Godefroid entered his room some fifteen minutes later."I got up earlier than usual, for Ifelt sure you would be impatient."
"Madame Henriette?" asked Godefroid, with visible anxiety.
"Was Madame's daughter!" replied Monsieur Alain."Madame's name is Lechantre de la Chanterie.Under the Empire none of the nobiliary titles were allowed, nor any of the names added to the patronymic or original names.Therefore, the Baronne des Tours-Minieres was called Madame Bryond.The Marquis d'Esgrignon took his name of Carol (citizen Carol); later he was called the Sieur Carol.The Troisvilles became the Sieurs Guibelin.""But what happened? Did the Emperor pardon her?""Alas, no!" replied Alain."The unfortunate little woman, not twenty-one years old, perished on the scaffold.After reading Bordin's appeal, the Emperor answered very much in these terms: 'Why be so bitter against the spy? A spy is no longer a man; he ought not to have feelings; he is a wheel of the machinery; Bryond did his duty.If instruments of that kind were not what they are,--steel bars,--and intelligent only in the service of the power employing them, government would not be possible.The sentences of criminal courts must be carried out, or the judges would cease to have confidence in themselves or in me.Besides, the women of the West must be taught not to meddle in plots.It is precisely in the case of a woman that justice should not be interfered with.There is no excuse possible for an attack on power?' This was the substance of what the Emperor said, as Bordin repeated it to me.Learning a little later that France and Russia were about to measure swords against each other, and that the Emperor was to go two thousand miles from Paris to attack a vast and desert country, Bordin understood the secret reason of the Emperor's harshness.To insure tranquillity at the West, now full of refractories, Napoleon believed it necessary to inspire terror.Bordin could do no more.""But Madame de la Chanterie?" said Godefroid.
"Madame de la Chanterie was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment,"replied Alain."As she was already transferred to Bicetre, near Rouen, to undergo her punishment, nothing was attempted on her behalf until every effort had been made to save Henriette, who had grown dearer than ever to her mother during this time of anxiety.Indeed, if it had not been for Bordin's assurance that he could obtain Henriette's pardon, it is doubtful if Madame could have survived the shock of the sentence.When the appeal failed, they deceived the poor mother.She saw her daughter once after the execution of the other prisoners, not knowing that Madame Bryond's respite was due to a false declaration of pregnancy, made to gain time for the appeal.""Ah! I understand it all now," exclaimed Godefroid.
"No, my dear child, there are things that no one can imagine.Madame thought her daughter living for a long time.""How was that?"
"When Madame des Tours-Minieres learned from Bordin that her appeal was rejected and that nothing could save her, that sublime little woman had the courage to write twenty letters, dating them month by month after the time of her execution, so as to make her poor mother in her prison believe she was alive.In those letters she told of a gradual illness which would end in death.They covered a period of two years.Madame de la Chanterie was therefore prepared for the news of her daughter's death, but she thought it a natural one.She did not know until 1814 that Henriette had died on the scaffold.For two years Madame was herded among the most depraved of her sex, but thanks to the urgency of the Champignelles and the Beauseants she was, after the second year, placed in a cell by herself, where she lived like a cloistered nun.""And the others?" asked Godefroid.
"The notary Leveille, Herbomez, Hiley, Cibot, Grenier, Horeau, Cabot, Minard, and Mallet were condemned to death, and executed the same day.
