human
Your Excellency--your Grace, I mean--I--I--most humbly--your Excellency--ah--pardon me, your Grace.
gpt
Entirely, Quartermaster. You represent Monsieur de Léry, I presume?
human
Yes, but--but--but----
gpt
Proceed quite tranquilly, Monsieur de Villerai, the Marshal remarked.
human
What accusation do you bring against Monsieur de Lincy?
gpt
That he is--an--some say an im----. I confess I know nothing against the gentleman myself--he seems to be a very nice young man, but Monsieur de Léry says he is something of that sort.
human
And that his proper title is not de Lincy, but that he is the son of a merchant in Canada who is no noble?
gpt
You know nothing against him yourself?
human
Nothing myself, very true.
gpt
You bring evidence, then?
human
My Lord--Marshal we have no evidence. I throw myself on your goodness--I had some papers with the contents of which I am unacquainted--but where they are I--I--pardon me your Excellency--this is a very unfortunate affair.
gpt
I think so, Monsieur de Villerai. Your friends have brought to trial a perfectly innocent man--they have allowed him, for several months, to remain under the intolerable vexations of the ban of society, and to stand deprived of his birthright as a gentleman--have destroyed him at Court--have almost blighted his career--have forced him to expose his life to the ocean, to take far-off and highly perilous journeys to collect his defences--and have compelled him more than once to brave mortal combat. They have done all this, as it appears, while his claims were perfectly regular, and while they themselves fail to produce the slightest atom of evidence against him beyond the unsupported assertions of their own family. What am I, as patron of this regiment, and a military man of sixty years' experience, to say to this state of things?
human
Excuse my--my Lord, de Villerai cried in desperation.
gpt
I said our proofs are lost.
human
It was your duty to have properly kept them. The opportunity for trial has been given. The accused has responded and cleared himself. You may depart, sir.
gpt
Monsieur de Lincy, continued he, addressing the latter, with an alteration from his severe tone to the kindest of voices,