How, it was asked, was it possible, without outraging common sense, to put an innocent meaning on the words which Grandval declared that he had heard from the lips of the banished King of England?
And who that knew the Court of Versailles would believe that Barbesieux, a youth, a mere novice in politics, and rather a clerk than a minister, would have dared to do what he had done without taking his master's pleasure?
Very charitable and very ignorant persons might perhaps indulge a hope that Lewis had not been an accessory before the fact.

But that he was an accessory after the fact no human being could doubt.

He must have seen the proceedings of the Court Martial, the evidence, the confession.

If he really abhorred assassination as honest men abhor it, would not Barbesieux have been driven with ignominy from the royal presence, and flung into the Bastile?
Yet Barbesieux was still at the War Office; and it was not pretended that he had been punished even by a word or a frown.

It was plain, then, that both Kings were partakers in the guilt of Grandval.
And if it were asked how two princes who made a high profession of religion could have fallen into such wickedness, the answer was that they had learned their religion from the Jesuits.