Of the hundred or more who were confined in the citadel, only
eighteen or twenty were tried, and they received only some very slight
punishment; the others were released.
Major Carini, the leader of the conspirators in Montaignac, who had
expected to lose his head, heard himself, with astonishment, sentenced
to two years' imprisonment.
But there are crimes which nothing can efface or extenuate. Public
opinion attributed this sudden clemency on the part of the duke and the
marquis to fear.
People execrated them for their cruelty, and despised them for their
apparent cowardice.
They were ignorant of this, however, and hastened forward the
preparations for the nuptials of their children, without suspecting that
the marriage was considered a shameless defiance of public sentiment on
their part.
The 17th of April was the day which had been appointed for the bridal,
and the wedding-feast was to be held at the Chateau de Sairmeuse, which,
at a great expense, had been transformed into a fairy palace for the
occasion.
It was in the church of the little village of Sairmeuse, on the
loveliest of spring days, that this marriage ceremony was performed by
the cure who had taken the place of poor Abbe Midon.
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