Read "The Story of the Diamond Necklace" by Henry Vizetelly online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
DEBATE IN THE COURT OF PARLIAMENT. -THE SENTENCES.
From half-past four in the morning of the 31st of May all the members of the cardinal's family, women as well as men, were assembled at the door of the parliament chamber, in order to be in the way of the judges as they passed into the hall. "They employed," we are told, "no other means of solicitation beyond preserving a mournful silence, in which might be discerned alike their grief, their firmness, and their respect for the throne and for the laws. This mode of solicitation, so noble, so worthy of the illustrious houses of Rohan, Soubise, Guéménée, and Lorraine, and at the same time so perfectly conformable to the nature of the affair in which the cardinal was implicated, made a more profound impression upon his judges than all the eloquence which was exercised in his behalf. "[327]