Genevieve then seeing, at the extremity of the court, a strong light escaping from a door beyond which pressed the soldiers of the escort, approached them. The door was that of a hall in the middle of which was erected a tribunal lighted by a number of flambeaux. Seated behind this tribunal, she recognized several of the persons she had seen at the supper given by Pontius Pilate; the Seigneurs Caiphus, the high priest; Baruch, doctor of law; Jonas, the banker, were among the judges of the young man of Nazareth. He was conducted before them; his hands bound, his features still calm, gentle and sad; a short distance from him were the officers of the court, and behind these, mixed with the soldiers and the servants of Caiphus, the two mysterious emissaries whom Genevieve had remarked at the tavern of the Wild Ass. Inasmuch as the countenance of the friend of the afflicted was serene and dignified, so did those of his judges appear violently irritated; they expressed the joy of a disgraceful triumph; they spoke in a low tone and from time to time they pointed with a menacing gesture to Mary's son, who patiently awaited his interrogatory.
Genevieve, confounded among those who filled the hall, heard them say to one another:
'He is at last taken, then, this Nazarene, who preached revolt!'
'Oh! he is less haughty now than when he was at the head of his troop of vagabonds and abandoned women!'
'He preaches against the rich,' said a servant of the high priest; 'he commands the renunciation of riches; but if our masters were to keep poor cheer, we servants should be reduced to the lot of hungry beggars, instead of fattening on the many feasts given by our masters.'
'And this is not all,' said another; 'if we listened to this cursed Nazarene, our masters, voluntarily impoverished, would denounce all pleasures; they would not throw away every day superb robes or tunics because the embroidery or color of these garments did not please them. Now, who profits by these caprices of our ostentatious masters, unless ourselves, since tunics and robes all fall to our share?'
'And if our masters renounced pleasures, to live on fasting and prayer, they would have no more gay mistresses, they would no longer charge us with those amorous commissions, recompensed magnificently in case of success!'