and people corning out with torches formed a torchlight procession, by
means of which everybody could see him. He, like the priest, was mounted
on a sorry hired horse, and entirely surrounded by archers, to whom, no
doubt, he owed his life on this occasion; for the indignation against him
was so great that everyone was egging on his neighbours to tear him limb
from limb, which would certainly have come to pass had he not been so
carefully defended and guarded.

Immediately upon receiving news of her daughter's death, Madame de Rossan
took possession of all her property, and, making herself a party to the
case, declared that she would never desist from her suit until her
daughter's death was avenged. M. Catalan began the examination at once,
and the first interrogation to which he submitted the marquis lasted
eleven hours. Then soon afterwards he and the other persons accused were
conveyed from the prisons of Montpellier to those of Toulouse. A
crushing memorial by Madame de Rossan followed them, in which she
demonstrated with absolute clearness that the marquis had participated in
the crime of his two brothers, if not in act, in thought, desire, and
intention.

The marquis's defence was very simple: it was his misfortune to have had
two villains for brothers, who had made attempts first upon the honour
and then upon the life of a wife whom he loved tenderly; they had
destroyed her by a most atrocious death, and to crown his evil fortune,
he, the innocent, was accused of having had a hand in that death. And,
indeed, the examinations in the trial did not succeed in bringing any
evidence against the marquis beyond moral presumptions, which, it
appears, were insufficient to induce his judges to award a sentence of
death.