"You know no more than that! you know no more than that!" muttered the judge. "Faith, I should say that was quite enough, and your affair's as clear as day, especially as the Vicomte de Marmagne is one of Madame d'Etampes's great favorites. So it seems that she has complained of you to the higher powers, my boy."
"The devil!" exclaimed the scholar, beginning to feel decidedly ill at ease. "Tell me, Monsieur le Juge, is the affair so bad as you say?"
"Worse! my dear friend, worse! I am not in the habit of frightening those who come before me; but I give you warning of this, so that if you have any arrangements to make—"
"Arrangements to make!" cried the student. "Tell me, Monsieur le Lieutenant Criminel, for God's sake! do you think my life's in danger?"
"Certainly it is, certainly. What! you attack a nobleman in the street, you force him to fight, you run a sword through him, and then you ask if your life's in danger! Yes, my dear friend, yes,—in very great danger."
"But such affairs happen every day, and I don't see that the guilty ones are prosecuted."
"True, among gentlemen, my young friend. Oh! when it pleases two gentlemen to cut each other's throats, it's a privilege of their rank, and the king has nothing to say; but if the common people take it into their head some fine day to fight with gentlemen, as they are twenty times as numerous, there would soon be no more gentlemen, which would be a great pity."
"How many days do you think my trial will last?"
"Five or six, in all likelihood."
"What!" cried the student, "five or six days! No more than that?"