The fair Marie de Lignac sat pale and agitated, supported by her uncle, the Knight of Lescun.

The Bishops of Lescar and Oloron, the eleven judges,[50] and all the nobles of the country attended, and were seated on elevated benches, in due order, near Prince Gaston de Foix." [Footnote 50: The number of twelve was reduced to eleven since the period that the village of Bidous was removed from the territorial jurisdiction of Bearn.] After a consultation of some length, these _equitable_ magistrates had decided that justice should be allowed to the complainant, and punishment awarded to those who had injured him, provided that he could prove that he was _a man_ and not _a Cagot_.
Nothing now remains for Raymond but the presentation of his mother's letter, and all the proofs which establish his birth.

On opening the paper, and on examining the embroidery on the mantles which wrapped the rescued infant; on looking at the initials of the chain of gold, the Knight of Lescun recognised the son of his cousin, Marguerite d'Amendaritz, first wife of Messire Loup Bergund, who, when he hears the truth, is seized with sudden remorse and amazement, and, being now without an heir, is not sorry to recover him whom he had before abandoned to destruction.

In spite, therefore, of the indignation of his wife--and her endeavours to repress his agitation throughout the scene--he starts up, and proclaims himself the father of Raymond: who, he declares aloud, is his long-lost son,--stolen from him by _routiers_--whose loss had cost him the life of a beloved wife, whom he deplored.
The result is, however, far different to his expectations, or that of all present.

The young knight, on finding that he is the son of a man so laden with crime as Loup Bergund, is seized with a frenzy of contempt and disgust.
"His open and expansive forehead became contracted with horror--he stood silent a few seconds, petrified and overwhelmed with his emotions--his body shrinking back in an attitude of repulsion and dislike, as if a venomous reptile were before his sight.