That morning there was not, as usual, a grand breakfast-party at number 32 Place VendÔme. So that about one o'clock you might have seen M. Barreau's majestic paunch arrayed in white linen displaying itself at the entrance to the porch, surrounded by four or five scullions in their paper caps and as many grooms in Scotch caps,—an imposing group, which gave the sumptuous mansion the appearance of a hostelry, where the whole staff was taking a breath of fresh air between two arrivals. The resemblance was made complete by the cab stopping in front of the door and the driver lifting down an old-fashioned leather trunk, while a tall old woman in a yellow cap, an erect figure with a little green shawl over her shoulders, leaped lightly to the sidewalk, a basket on her arm, and looked carefully at the number, then approached the group of servants and asked if that was where M. Bernard Jansoulet lived.

"This is the place," was the reply. "But he isn't in."

"That's no matter," said the old woman, very naturally.

She returned to the driver, bade him put her trunk under the porch, and paid him, at once replacing her purse in her pocket with a gesture that said much for provincial distrust.

Since Jansoulet had been Deputy for Corsica, his servants had seen so many strange, foreign-looking creatures alight at his door that they were not greatly surprised at sight of that sun-burned woman, with eyes like glowing coals, bearing much resemblance in her simple head-dress to a genuine Corsican, some old psalm-singer straight from the underbrush, but distinguished from newly-arrived islanders by the ease and tranquillity of her manners.

"What do you say, the master isn't in?" she said with an intonation which is much more frequently heard by the hands on a farm, on a mas in her province, than by the impertinent lackeys of a great Parisian household.

"No, the master isn't in."

"And the children?"

"They're taking their lesson. You can't see them."

"And Madame?"

"She's asleep. No one enters her room before three o'clock."

That seemed to surprise the good woman a little, that any one could stay in bed so late; but the sure instinct which, in default of education, acts as a guide to intelligent natures, prevented her from saying so to the servants, and she at once asked to speak to Paul de GÉry.

"He is travelling."

"Bompain Jean-Baptiste then?"

"He's at the Chamber with Monsieur."

Her great gray eyebrows contracted.

"No matter; take my trunk upstairs all the same."

And, with a malicious little twitching of the eye, a touch of pride, of vengeance for the insolent glances turned upon her, she added:

"I am his mother."

Scullions and grooms stood aside respectfully. M. Barreau raised his cap:

"I was saying to myself that I had seen Madame somewhere."

"That's just what I was saying to myself too, my boy," said MÈre Jansoulet, shuddering at the memory of the ill-fated festivities in honor of the bey.

"My boy!"—to M. Barreau, to a man of his importance! That instantly placed her very high in the esteem of that little circle.

Ah! grandeurs and splendors did not dazzle her, the brave-hearted old woman. She was no opÉra-comique MÈre Boby going into ecstasies over the gildings and fine trinkets; the vases of flowers on every landing of the staircase she ascended behind her trunk, the hall-lamps supported by bronze statues, did not prevent her noticing that there was a finger's depth of dust on the stair-rail and that the carpet was torn. They escorted her to the apartments on the second floor, reserved for the Levantine and the children, and there, in a room used as a linen closet, which was evidently near the school-room, for she could hear a murmur of childish voices, she waited, all alone, her basket on her knees, for her Bernard to return, for her daughter-in-law to awake, or for the great joy of embracing her grandchildren. Nothing could be better adapted than what she saw around her to give her an idea of the confusion of a household given over to servants, where the oversight of the housewife and her far-seeing activity are lacking. In huge wardrobes, all wide open, linen was heaped up pell-mell in shapeless, bulging, tottering piles,—fine sheets, Saxony table linen crumbled and torn, and the locks prevented from working by some stray piece of embroidery which nobody took the trouble to remove. And yet many servants passed through that linen closet,—negresses in yellow madras, who hastily seized a napkin or a table-cloth, heedlessly trampled on those domestic treasures scattered all about, dragged to the end of the room on their great flat feet lace flounces cut from a long skirt which a maid had cast aside, thimble here, scissors there, as a piece of work to be taken up again.

The semi-rustic artisan, which MÈre Jansoulet had not ceased to be, was sadly grieved at the sight, wounded in the respect, the affection, the inoffensive mania which is inspired in the provincial housewife by the wardrobe filled with linen, piece by piece, to the very top, full of relics of the poor past, its contents increasing gradually in quantity and in quality, the first visible symptom of comfortable circumstances, of wealth in a house. Again, that woman always had the distaff in her hand from morning till night, and if the house-keeper was indignant, the spinster could have wept as at a profanation. Finally, unable to endure it longer, she rose, abandoned her patient, watchful attitude, and stooping over, her little green shawl displaced by every movement, began actively to pick up, smooth and fold with care that beautiful linen, as she did on the lawns at Saint-Romans, when she indulged in the amusement of a grand washing, employing twenty women, the baskets overflowing with snow-white folds, the sheets flapping in the morning breeze on the long drying lines. She was deeply engrossed in that occupation, which made her forget her journey, Paris, even the place where she was, when a stout, thickset man, heavily bearded, in varnished boots, and a velvet jacket covering the chest and shoulders of a bull, entered the linen closet.

"Ah! Cabassu."

"You here, Madame FranÇoise! This is a surprise," said the masseur, opening wide his great Japanese idol's eyes.

"Why, yes, good Cabassu, it's me. I've just come. And I'm at work already, as you see. It made my heart bleed to see all this mess."

"So you've come for the sitting, have you?"

"What sitting?"

"Why, the great sitting of the Corps LÉgislatif. This is the day."

"Faith, no. What difference do you suppose that can make to me? I don't understand anything about such things. No, I came because I wanted to know my little Jansoulets, and then, I was beginning to be uneasy. I've written two or three times now without getting any answer. I was afraid there might be a child sick, or that Bernard's business was in a bad way—all sorts of uncomfortable ideas. I had an attack of great black anxiety, and I started. Everybody's well here, so they tell me?"

"Why, yes, Madame FranÇoise. Everybody 's exceedingly well, thank God!"

"And Bernard? His business? Is it going along to suit him?"

"Oh! you know a man always has his little crosses in this life; however, I don't think he has any reason to complain. But now I think of it, you must be hungry. I'll go and send you something to eat."

He was about to ring, much more self-assured and at home than the old mother. But she checked him.

"No, no, I don't need anything. I still have some of my luncheon left."

She placed two figs and a crust of bread, taken from her basket, on the table, and continued to talk as she ate:

"And what about your affairs, little one? It seems to me you've spruced up mightily since the last time you came to the Bourg. What linen, what clothes! What department are you in?"

"I am professor of massage," said Aristide gravely.

"You a professor!" she exclaimed, with respectful amazement; but she dared not ask him what he taught, and Cabassu, somewhat embarrassed by her questions, hastened to change the subject.

"Suppose I go and fetch the children? Hasn't any one told them their grandmother was here?"

"I didn't want to take them away from their work. But I believe the lesson is over now. Listen."

On the other side of the door they heard the impatient stamping of school children longing to be dismissed, eager for room and air; and the old woman listened with delight to the fascinating sounds that increased her maternal longing ten-fold, but prevented her from doing anything to satisfy it. At last the door opened. First the tutor appeared, an abbÉ with a pointed nose and prominent cheek-bones, whom we have seen at the state breakfasts of an earlier day. Having fallen out with his bishop, the ambitious ecclesiastic had left the diocese where he formerly exercised the priestly functions, and, in his precarious position as an irregular member of the clergy—for the clergy has its own Bohemia—was glad of the opportunity to teach the little Jansoulets, recently expelled from Bourdaloue. With the same solemn, arrogant mien, as of one overburdened with responsibility, which the great prelates intrusted with the education of the Dauphins of France might assume, he stalked in front of three little fellows, curled and gloved, with oblong hats and short jackets, leather bags slung over their shoulders, and long red stockings reaching to the middle of the leg, the costume of the complete velocipedist about to mount his machine.

"Children," said Cabassu, the intimate friend of the family, "this is Madame Jansoulet, your grandmother, who has come to Paris on purpose to see you."

They halted, very much astonished, arranged according to height, and examined that withered old face between the yellow barbs of the cap, that strange costume, unfamiliar in its simplicity; and their grandmother's astonishment answered theirs, increased by heart-rending disappointment and by the embarrassment she felt in presence of those little gentlemen, who were as stiff and disdainful as the marquises, the counts and the prefects on circuit whom her son used to bring to her at Saint-Romans. In obedience to their tutor's injunction, "to salute their venerable grandmother," they came up one by one and gave her one of the same little handshakes with arms close to their sides of which they had distributed so many among the garrets; indeed, that good woman with the earth-colored face, and neat but very simple clothes, reminded them of their charitable visits from CollÈge Bourdaloue. They felt between herself and them the same strangeness, the same distance, which no memory, no word from their parents had ever lessened. The abbÉ realized her embarrassment, and, to banish it, launched forth upon a speech delivered with the throaty voice, the violent gestures common to those men who always think that they have below them the ten steps leading to a pulpit:

"Lo, the day has come, Madame, the great day when Monsieur Jansoulet is to confound his enemies. Confundantur hostes mei, quia injuste iniquitatem fecerunt in me,—because they have persecuted me unjustly."

The old woman bowed devoutly to the Church Latin; but her face assumed a vague expression of uneasiness at the idea of enemies and persecutions.

"Those enemies are numerous and powerful, noble lady, but let us not be alarmed beyond measure. Let us have confidence in the decrees of heaven and the justice of our cause. God is in the midst of it and it shall not be shaken. In medio ejus non commovebitur."

A gigantic negro, resplendent in new gold lace, interrupted them to announce that the velocipedes were ready for the daily lesson on the terrace of the Tuileries. Before leaving the room, the children solemnly shook once more the wrinkled, calloused hand of their grandmother, who was watching them walk away, utterly bewildered and with a sore heart, when, yielding to an adorable, spontaneous impulse, the youngest of the three, having reached the door, suddenly turned, pushed the great negro aside, and plunged head foremost, like a little buffalo, into MÈre Jansoulet's skirts, throwing his arms around her and holding up to her his smooth brow splashed with brown curls, with the sweet grace of the child who offers his caress like a flower. Perhaps the little fellow, being nearer the nest and its warmth, the nurse's cradling lap and patois ballads, had felt the waves of maternal love of which the Levantine deprived him flowing toward his little heart. The old "Grandma" shuddered from head to foot in her surprise at that instinctive embrace.

"Oh my darling—my darling!" seizing the curly, silky little head which reminded her of another, and kissing it frantically. Then the child released himself and ran away without a word, his hair wet with hot tears.

Left alone with Cabassu, the mother, whom that kiss had consoled, asked for an explanation of the priest's words.—Had her son many enemies, pray?

"Oh!" said Cabassu, "it is not at all surprising in his position."

"But what's all this about this being a great day, and this 'sitting' you all talk about?"

"Why, yes! This is the day when we're to know whether Bernard is to be a deputy or not."

"What? Isn't he one yet? Why, I have told it everywhere in the neighborhood, and I illuminated Saint-Romans a month ago. So I was made to tell a lie!"

The masseur had much difficulty in explaining to her the parliamentary formality of testing the validity of elections. She listened with only one ear, feverishly pulling over the linen.

"And that's where my Bernard is at this moment?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Are women allowed to go into this Chamber?—Then why isn't his wife there? For I can understand that it's a great affair for him. On such a day as to-day he will need to feel that all those he loves are beside him. Look you, my boy, you must take me to this sitting. Is it very far?"

"No, very near. Only it must have begun before this. And then," added the Giaour, a little embarrassed, "this is the hour when Madame needs me."

"Ah! Do you teach her this thing that you're professor of? What do you call it?"

"Massage. It comes down to us from the ancients. There, she's ringing her bell now. Some one will come to call me. Do you want me to tell her that you are here?"

"No, no, I prefer to go to the Chamber at once."

"But you have no card of admission, have you?"

"Bah! I'll say that I am Jansoulet's mother and that I have come to hear my son tried."

Poor mother! she did not know how truly she described his position.

"Wait a moment, Madame FranÇoise. Let me, at least, send some one to show you the way."

"Oh! do you know, I've never been able to get used to these servant people. I've a tongue in my head. There are people in the streets; I shall find my way well enough."

He made one last attempt, without disclosing the whole of his thought:

"Be careful. His enemies will speak against him in the Chamber. You will hear things that will hurt you."

Oh! the lovely smile of maternal faith and pride with which she answered:

"Don't I know better than all those people what my son is worth? Is there anything that could make me unjust to him? If so, I must be a mighty ungrateful woman. Nonsense!"

And, with a threatening shake of her cap, she departed.

Straight as a statue, with head erect, the old woman strode along under the arches she had been told to follow, somewhat disturbed by the incessant rumbling of carriages and by her slow progress, unaccompanied by the movement of her faithful distaff, which had not quitted her for fifty years. All these suggestions of enmity, of persecution, the priest's mysterious words, Cabassu's dark hints, excited and terrified her. She found therein an explanation of the presentiments which had taken possession of her so firmly as to tear her away from her habits and her duties, the superintendence of the ChÂteau and the care of her invalid. Strangely enough, by the way, since fortune had cast upon her son and her that cloak of gold with its heavy folds, MÈre Jansoulet had never become accustomed to it, and was always expecting the sudden disappearance of their splendor. Who could say that the final crash was not really beginning now? And suddenly, amid these gloomy thoughts, the remembrance of the childish scene of a moment before, of the little one rubbing against her drugget skirt, caused her wrinkled lips to swell in a loving smile, and, in her joy, she murmured in her patois:

"Oh! that little fellow!"

A vast, magnificent, dazzling square, two sheaves of water flying upward in silver dust, then a great stone bridge, and at the further end a square building with statues in front of it, and an iron gateway where carriages were standing, people passing through and a knot of police officers. That was the place. She made her way bravely through the crowd as far as a high glass door.

"Your card, my good woman?"

The good woman had no card, but she said simply to one of the ushers with red lapels who were acting as doorkeepers:

"I am Bernard Jansoulet's mother; I have come to attend my boy's sitting."

It was in very truth her boy's sitting; for in that crowd besieging the doors, in the crowd that filled the corridors, the hall, the galleries, the whole palace, the same name was whispered everywhere, accompanied by smiles and muttered comments. A great scandal was expected, shocking revelations by the spokesman of the committee which would doubtless lead to some violent outburst on the part of the savage thus brought to bay; and people crowded thither as to a first performance or the argument of a famous cause. The old mother certainly could not have made herself heard in the midst of that throng, if the train of gold left by the Nabob wherever he passed, and marking his royal progress, had not made everything smooth for her. She followed an usher through that labyrinth of corridors, folding doors, empty, echoing rooms, filled with a buzzing noise which circulated through the air in the building and passed out through its walls, as if the very stones were impregnated with that verbosity and added the echoes of bygone days to those of all the voices of to-day. Passing through a corridor, she spied a little dark man shouting and gesticulating to the attendants:

"Tell Moussiou Jansoulet zat I am ze deputy-mayor of Sarlazaccio, zat I have been sentenced to five month in prison for him. Zat deserves a card for ze sitting, Corps de Dieu!"

Five months in prison on her son's account. How could that be? Anxious beyond words, she arrived at last, with a ringing in her ears, at a landing where there were divers little doors like those of furnished lodgings or theatre boxes, surmounted by different inscriptions: "Senators' Gallery," "Gallery of the Diplomatic Corps," "Members' Gallery." She entered, seeing nothing at first but four or five rows of benches crowded with people; then, on the opposite side of the hall, far away, other galleries equally crowded, separated from her by a vast open space; she leaned, still standing, against the wall, amazed to be there, bewildered, confused. A puff of hot air striking her in the face, the hum of voices ascending from below drew her down the sloping floor of the gallery, toward the edge of a yawning pit, so to speak, in the centre of the great vessel, where her son must be. Oh, how she would have liked to see him! Thereupon, making herself as small as possible, playing about her with her elbows, sharp and hard as her distaff, she glided, wormed herself along between the wall and the benches, heedless of the outbursts of wrath she aroused, of the contemptuous glances of the women in gorgeous array, whose laces and spring dresses she crushed. For it was a distinctly fashionable society gathering.

Indeed, MÈre Jansoulet recognized by his inflexible shirtfront and aristocratic nose the dandified marquis who had visited at Saint-Romans, and who bore so felicitously the name of a gorgeous bird; but he did not look at her. Having thus advanced a few rows, she was checked by the back of a man sitting, an enormous back which completely blocked her path, prevented her from going farther. Luckily, however, by leaning forward a little, she could see almost the whole hall; and those semi-circular rows of desks where the deputies stood in groups, the green hangings on the walls, that pulpit at the rear occupied by a man with a bald head and stern features, all in the quiet gray light falling from above, made her think of a recitation about to commence, preceded by the moving about and chattering of restless pupils.

One thing attracted her attention, the persistence with which all eyes seemed to be turned in the same direction, to be fixed upon the same point of attraction; and as she followed that current of curiosity which magnetized the whole assemblage, the floor as well as the galleries, she saw what everybody was staring at so earnestly; it was her son.

In the Jansoulets' province there still exists in some old churches, at the back of the choir, half-way up from the crypt, a little stone box, to which lepers were admitted to listen to the services, exhibiting to the curious and fearful throng their pitiable brute-like figures cowering against the holes cut in the wall. FranÇoise well remembered having seen, in the village in which she was brought up, the leper, the terror of her childhood, listening to the mass in his stone cage, lost in the shadow and in reprobation. When she saw her son sitting alone, far back, with his face in his hands, that picture came to her mind. "One would say he was a leper," muttered the peasant woman. And in very truth the poor Nabob was a moral leper, upon whom his millions brought from the Orient were at that moment imposing the torments of a terrible and mysterious exotic disease. As it happened, the bench upon which he had chosen his seat showed several gaps due to leaves of absence or recent deaths; and while the other deputies talked and laughed together, making signs to one another, he sat silent, apart, the object of the earnest scrutiny of the whole Chamber,—a scrutiny which MÈre Jansoulet felt to be ironical, ill-disposed, and which burned her as it passed. How could she let him know that she was there, close at hand, that one faithful heart was beating not far from his? for he avoided turning toward that gallery. One would have said that he felt that it was hostile, that he was afraid of seeing discouraging things there. Suddenly, at the ringing of a bell on the president's desk, a thrill ran through the assemblage, every head was bent forward in the attentive attitude that immobilizes the features, and a thin man with spectacles, suddenly rising to his feet amid that multitude of seated men—a position which gave him at once the authority of attitude—said, as he opened the pile of papers which he held in his hand:

"Messieurs, I rise in the name of your third committee, to recommend to you that the election in the second district of the department of Corsica be declared void."

In the profound silence following that sentence, which MÈre Jansoulet did not understand, the stout creature sitting in front of her began to wheeze violently, and suddenly a lovely woman's face, in the front row of the gallery, turned to make him a rapid sign of intelligence and satisfaction. Her pale brow, thin lips and eyebrows that seemed too black in the white frame of the hat, produced in the good old woman's eyes, although she could not tell why, the painful impression of the first lightning flash when the storm is beginning and the apprehension of the thunderbolt follows the rapid meeting of the fluids.

Le Merquier read his report. The slow, lifeless, monotonous voice, the Lyonnais accent, soft and drawling, with which the advocate kept time by a movement of the head and shoulders almost like an animal, presented a striking contrast to the savage conciseness of the conclusions. First, a rapid sketch of the electoral irregularities. Never had universal suffrage been treated with such primitive, uncivilized disrespect. At Sarlazaccio, where Jansoulet's opponent seemed likely to carry the day, the ballot-box was destroyed during the night preceding the counting. The same thing, or almost the same, happened at LÉvie, at Saint-AndrÉ, at Avabessa. And these offences were committed by the mayors themselves, who carried the boxes to their houses, broke the seals and tore up the ballots, under cover of their municipal authority. On all sides fraud, intrigue, even violence. At Calcatoggio an armed man, blunderbuss in hand, stood at the window of an inn just opposite the mayor's office throughout the election; and whenever a supporter of SÉbastiani, Jansoulet's opponent, appeared on the square, the man pointed his weapon at him: "If you go in, I'll blow out your brains!" Moreover, when we see police commissioners, justices of the peace, sealers of weights and measures daring to transform themselves into electoral agents, intimidating and seducing a people notorious for their subjection to all these tyrannical little local influences, have we not proof positive of unbridled license? Why, even the priests, consecrated pastors, led astray by their zealous interest in the poor-box and the maintenance of their impoverished churches, preached a veritable crusade in favor of Jansoulet's election. But an even more powerful, although less respectable, influence was set at work for the good cause,—the influence of bandits. "Yes, bandits, Messieurs, I am not jesting."—And thereupon followed a sketch in bold colors of Corsican banditti in general and the Piedigriggio family in particular.

The Chamber listened with close attention and with considerable uneasiness. The fact was that it was an official candidate whose actions were being thus described, and those strange electoral morals were indigenous in that privileged island, the cradle of the imperial family, and so intimately connected with the destiny of the dynasty that an attack on Corsica seemed to react upon the sovereign. But when it was observed that the new minister of State, Mora's successor and bitter enemy, sitting on the government benches, seemed overjoyed at the rebuke administered to a creature of the defunct statesman, and smiled complacently at Le Merquier's stinging persiflage, all embarrassment instantly disappeared and the ministerial smile, repeated on three hundred mouths, soon increased to scarce-restrained laughter, the laughter of crowds dominated by any rod, by whomsoever held, which the slightest sign of approbation from the master causes to burst forth. In the galleries, which were as a general rule but little indulged with picturesque incidents, and were entertained by these stories of bandits as by a genuine novel, there was general gayety, a radiant animation enlivened the faces of all the women, overjoyed to be able to appear pretty without jarring upon the solemnity of the place. Little light hats quivered in all their bright-hued plumes, round arms encircled with gold leaned on the rail in order to listen more at their ease. The solemn Le Merquier had imparted to the sitting the entertainment of a play, had introduced the little comical note permitted at charitable concerts as a lure to the profane.

Impassive and cold as ice, despite his triumph, he continued to read in a voice as dismal and penetrating as a Lyonnais shower.

"Now, Messieurs, we ask ourselves how it was that a stranger, a ProvenÇal recently returned from the Orient, entirely ignorant of the interests and needs of that island where he had never been seen before the elections, the true type of what the Corsicans contemptuously call 'a continental'—how did this man succeed in arousing such enthusiasm, devotion so great as to lead to crime, to profanation? His wealth will answer the question, his vile gold thrown into the faces of the electors, stuffed by force into their pockets with a shameless cynicism of which we have innumerable proofs."—Then came the endless series of affidavits: "I, the undersigned, Croce (Antoine), do testify, in the interest of truth, that Nardi, commissioner of police, came to our house one evening and said to me, 'Hark ye, Croce (Antoine), I swear to you by the flame of yonder lamp that, if you vote for Jansoulet, you shall have fifty francs to-morrow morning,'"—And this: "I, the undersigned, Lavezzi (Jacques-Alphonse), declare that I refused with scorn seventeen francs offered me by the mayor of Pozzo-Negro to vote against my cousin SÉbastiani."—It is probable that for three francs more Lavezzi (Jacques-Alphonse) would have devoured his scorn in silence. But the Chamber did not go so deep as that.

It was moved to indignation, was that incorruptible Chamber. It muttered, it moved about restlessly on its soft benches of red velvet, it uttered noisy exclamations. There were "Ohs!" of stupefaction, eyes like circumflex accents, sudden backward movements, or appalled, discouraged gestures, such as the spectacle of human degradation sometimes calls forth. And observe that the majority of those deputies had used the identical electoral methods, that there were on those benches heroes of the famous "rastels," of those open-air banquets at which begarlanded and beribboned calves were borne aloft in triumph as at Gargantua's kermesses. They naturally cried out louder than the others, turned in righteous wrath toward the high, solitary bench where the poor leper sat motionless, listening, his head in his hands. But amid the general hue and cry, a single voice arose in his favor, a low, unpractised voice, rather a sympathetic buzzing than speech, in which could be vaguely distinguished the words: "Great services rendered to Corsica. Extensive enterprises. Caisse Territoriale."

The man who spoke thus falteringly was a little fellow in white gaiters, with an albino's face and scanty hair that stood erect in bunches. But that tactless friend's interruption simply furnished Le Merquier with a pretext for an immediate and natural transition. A hideous smile parted his flabby lips. "The honorable Monsieur Sarigue refers to the Caisse Territoriale; we proceed to answer him." The Paganetti den of thieves seemed to be, in truth, very familiar to him. In a few concise, keen words he threw light into the inmost depths of that dark lair, pointed out all the snares, all the pitfalls, the windings, the trap-doors, like a guide waving his torch above the underground dungeons of some hideous in pace. He spoke of the pretended quarries, the railroads on paper, the imaginary steamboats, vanished in their own smoke. The ghastly desert of Taverna was not forgotten, nor the old Genoese tower that served as an office for the Maritime Agency. But the detail that rejoiced the heart of the Chamber above all else was the description of a burlesque ceremonial organized by the Governor for driving a tunnel through Monte-Rotondo,—a gigantic undertaking still in the air, postponed from year to year, requiring millions of money and thousands of arms, which had been inaugurated with great pomp a week before the election. The report described the affair comically, the blow of the pick delivered by the candidate on the flank of the great mountain covered with primeval forests, the prefect's speech, the blessing of the standards amid shouts of "Vive Bernard Jansoulet!" and two hundred workmen going to work at once, working day and night for a week, and then—as soon as the election was over—abandoning the piles of broken rock heaped around an absurd excavation, an additional place of refuge for the redoubtable prowlers in the thickets. The trick was played. After extorting money so long from the shareholders, the Caisse Territoriale had been made to serve as a means of capturing the votes of the electors,—"And now, Messieurs, here is one last detail with which I might well have begun, in order to spare you the distressing story of this electoral burlesque. I learn that a judicial inquiry into the Corsican concern has been opened this very day, and that a searching expert examination of its books will very probably lead to one of those financial scandals, too frequent, alas! in our day, in which you will not, for the honor of this Chamber, permit one of your members to be involved."

Upon that unexpected disclosure the reporter paused a moment to draw breath, like an actor emphasizing the effect of his words; and in the dramatic silence which suddenly settled down upon the whole assemblage, the sound of a closing door was heard. It was Paganetti, the governor, who had hastily left his seat in one of the galleries, with pale face, round eyes, and mouth puckered for a whistle, like Mr. Punch when he has detected in the air the near approach of a violent blow. Monpavon, unmoved, puffed out his breastplate. The stout man wheezed violently into the flowers on his wife's little white hat.

MÈre Jansoulet gazed at her son.

"I spoke of the honor of the Chamber, Messieurs,—I have something more to say on that subject."

Le Merquier was no longer reading. After the reporter, the orator came upon the stage, the judge rather. His face was devoid of expression, his glance averted, and nothing lived, nothing stirred in his long body, but the right arm, that long, bony arm in its short sleeve, which moved mechanically up and down like a sword of justice, and punctuated the end of each sentence with the cruel and inexorable gesture of beheading. And it was in truth a veritable execution at which that audience was looking on. The orator would have been glad to omit from consideration the scandalous legends, the mystery that hovered over the amassing of that colossal fortune in distant lands, far from all supervision. But there were in the candidate's life certain points difficult to explain, certain details—He hesitated, seemed to be selecting his words with great care, then, as if recognizing the impossibility of formulating the direct charge, he continued: "Let us not degrade the discussion, Messieurs. You have understood me, you know to what infamous reports,—to what calumnies I would that I might say,—I allude; but truth compels me to declare that when Monsieur Jansoulet, being summoned before our third committee, was called upon to controvert the charges made against him, his explanations were so vague that, while we were persuaded of his innocence, our scrupulous regard for your honor led us to reject a candidate tainted with ordure of that sort. No, that man should not be allowed to sit among you. Indeed, what would he do here? Having resided so long in the Orient, he has forgotten the laws, the morals, the customs of his own country. He believes in the hasty administration of justice, bastinadoes in the public streets; he relies upon abuses of power, and, what is still worse, upon the venality, the cowering degradation of all mankind. He is the merchant who thinks that everything can be bought if he offers enough for it,—even the votes of electors, even the consciences of his colleagues."

You should have seen the artless admiration with which those estimable portly deputies, torpid with good living, listened to that ascetic, that man of another epoch, as if some Saint-JÉrÔme had come forth from the depths of his thebaid to overwhelm with his burning eloquence, in the Senate of the Empire of the East, the unblushing profligacy of prevaricators and extortioners. How fully they understood the noble sobriquet of "My Conscience," which the Palais de Justice bestowed upon him, and which suited him so well with his great height and his wooden gestures! In the galleries the enthusiasm was even greater. Pretty faces leaned forward to see him, to drink in his words. Murmurs of approval ran along the benches, waving bouquets of all shades of color, like the wind blowing through a field of grain in flower. A woman's voice exclaimed in a slight foreign accent: "Bravo! bravo!"

And the mother?

Standing motionless, absorbed by her eager desire to understand something of that courtroom phraseology, of those mysterious allusions, she was like the deaf-mutes who detect what is said in their presence only by the movement of the lips, by the expression of the face. Now, one had only to look at her son and Le Merquier to understand what injury one was inflicting upon the other, what treacherous poisoned meaning fell from that long harangue upon the poor devil who might have been thought to be asleep, save for the quivering of his broad shoulders and the clenching of his hands in his hair, in which they rioted madly, while concealing his face. Oh! if she could have called to him from where she stood: "Don't be afraid, my son! If they all despise you, your mother loves you. Let us go away together. What do we care for them?" And for a moment she could almost believe that what she said to him thus in the depths of her heart reached him by virtue of some mysterious intuition. He had risen, shaken his curly head, with its flushed cheeks, and its thick lips quivering nervously with a childish longing to burst into tears. But, instead of leaving his bench, he clung to it, his great hands crushing the wooden rail. The other had finished; now it was his turn to reply.

"Messieurs—" he said.

He stopped instantly, dismayed by the hoarse, horribly dull and vulgar sound of his voice, which he heard for the first time in public. And in that pause, tormented by twitchings of the face, by fruitless efforts to find the intonation he sought, he must needs summon strength to make his defence. And if the poor man's agony was touching to behold, the old mother up yonder, leaning forward, breathing hard, moving her lips nervously as if to assist him to find his words, sent back to him a faithful imitation of his torture. Although he could not see her, having his face turned away from that gallery which he intentionally avoided, that maternal breath, the ardent magnetism of those black eyes gave him life at last, and the fetters suddenly dropped from his speech and his gestures.

"First of all, Messieurs, let me say that I do not come here to defend my election. If you believe that electoral morals have not always been the same in Corsica, that all the irregularities committed must be attributed to the corrupting influence of my money and not to the uncivilized and passionate nature of a people, reject me; it will be justice and I shall not murmur. But there is something else than my election involved in this matter; accusations have been made which attack my honor, which bring it directly in question, and to those alone I propose to reply." His voice gradually became stronger, still trembling and indistinct, but with now and then a thrilling note such as we sometimes hear in voices whose original harshness has undergone some changes. He sketched his life very rapidly, his early days, his departure for the Orient. You would have said that it was one of the eighteenth century tales of barbarian pirates scouring the Latin seas, of beys and fearless ProvenÇaux, dark as crickets, who always end by marrying some sultana and "taking the turban," according to the old Marseillais expression. "For my part," said the Nabob, with his ingenuous smile, "I had no need to take the turban to enrich myself, I contented myself with importing into that land of indolence and utter heedlessness the activity, the pliability of a Frenchman from the South, and I succeeded in a few years in making one of the fortunes that are made nowhere else except in those infernally hot countries where everything is huge, hurried, out of proportion, where flowers grow in a night, where a single tree produces a whole forest. The excuse for such fortunes lies in the use that is made of them, and I undertake to say that no favorite of destiny ever tried harder than I did to earn forgiveness for his wealth. I did not succeed."—No, indeed, he had not succeeded. From all the gold he had sown with such insane lavishness he had reaped naught but hatred and contempt. Hatred! Who else could boast of having stirred up so much of that as he, as a vessel stirs up the mud when its keel touches bottom? He was too rich; that took the place in him of all sorts of vices, of all sorts of crimes, and singled him out for anonymous acts of vengeance, for cruel and persistent animosities.

"Ah! Messieurs," cried the poor Nabob, raising his clenched fists, "I have known poverty, I have struggled with it hand to hand, and it is a terrible struggle, I give you my word. But to struggle against wealth, to defend one's happiness, one's honor, one's peace of mind, feebly protected by piles of gold pieces which topple over and crush one, is a far more ghastly, more heart-sickening task. Never, in the gloomiest of my days of destitution, did I suffer the torture, the agony, the sleeplessness with which fortune has overwhelmed me, this horrible fortune which I abhor and which suffocates me! I am known as the Nabob in Paris. Nabob is not the proper name for me, but Pariah, a social pariah stretching out his arms, wide open, to a society that will have none of him."

Printed upon paper these words may seem cold; but there, before the whole Chamber, that man's defence seemed to be instinct with an eloquent and imposing serenity, which aroused astonishment at first, coming from that clown, that upstart, unread, uneducated, with his Rhone boatman's voice and his street porter's bearing, and afterward moved his auditors strangely by its unrefined, uncivilized character, utterly at variance with all parliamentary traditions. Already tokens of approval had manifested themselves among the benches, accustomed to submit to the colorless, monotonous downpour of administrative language. But at that cry of frenzy and despair hurled at wealth by the unfortunate man whom it held in its toils, whom it drenched and drowned in its floods of gold, and who struggled against it, calling for help from the depths of his Pactolus, the whole Chamber rose with fervent applause, with hands outstretched as if to give the unhappy Nabob those tokens of esteem which he seemed to covet so earnestly, and at the same time to save him from shipwreck. Jansoulet was conscious of it, and, warmed by that manifestation of sympathy, he continued, with head erect and assured glance:

"You have just been told, Messieurs, that I am not worthy to sit among you. And the man who told you that was the very last man from whom I should have expected it, for he alone knows the painful secret of my life; he alone was able to speak for me, to justify me and convince you. He did not choose to do it. Very good! I will make the attempt, whatever it may cost me. Outrageously calumniated as I have been before the whole country, I owe to myself, I owe to my children this public justification, and I have decided to make it."

With that he turned abruptly toward the gallery where he knew that the enemy was watching him, and stopped suddenly, horror-stricken. Directly in front of him, behind the baroness's pale, malicious little face, his mother, his mother whom he believed to be two hundred leagues away from the terrible storm, stood leaning against the wall, gazing at him, holding toward him her divine face streaming with tears, but proud and radiant none the less in her Bernard's great success. For it was a genuine success of sincere, eminently human emotion, which a few words more would change into a triumph.—"Go on! Go on!" men shouted from all sides of the Chamber, to reassure him, to encourage him. But Jansoulet did not speak. And yet he had very little to say to justify himself: "Calumny wilfully confused two names. My name is Bernard Jansoulet. The other's name was Jansoulet Louis." Not another word.

But that was too much in his mother's presence, as she was still ignorant of her oldest son's dishonor. It was too much for the family respect and unity.

He fancied he could hear his old father's voice: "I am dying of shame, my son."—Would not she die of shame too, if he were to speak? He met his mother's smile with a sublime glance of renunciation; then he continued in a dull voice and with a gesture of discouragement:

"Excuse me, Messieurs, this explanation is decidedly beyond my strength. Order an investigation into my life, open to all and in the broad light of day, for any one can understand my every act. I swear to you that you will find nothing therein which should debar me from sitting among the representatives of my country."

The amazement, the disappointment at that surrender, which seemed to all the sudden downfall of great effrontery when brought to bay, were beyond all bounds. There was a moment of excitement on the benches, the confusion of a standing vote, which the Nabob watched listlessly in the uncertain light from the stained glass windows, as the condemned man watches the surging crowd from the platform of the scaffold; then, after the suspense of a century which precedes a supreme moment, the president announced amid profound silence, in the simplest manner imaginable:

"Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet's election is declared void."

Never was a man's life cut short with less solemnity or pother.

MÈre Jansoulet, up yonder in her gallery, understood nothing except that she could see gaps on the benches all around,—that people were getting up and going away. Soon no one remained with her save the fat man and the lady in the white hat, who were leaning over the rail and gazing curiously at Bernard, who seemed to be preparing to go, for he was very calmly packing thick bundles of papers into a great portfolio. His papers arranged, he rose and left his seat.—Ah! the lives of those who sit in high places sometimes have very cruel moments. Gravely, heavily, under the eyes of the whole Chamber, he must redescend the steps he had climbed at the price of so much toil and money, only to be hurled back to their foot by an inexorable fatality.

It was that for which the Hemerlingues were waiting, following with their eyes to its last stage that heart-rending, humiliating exit which piles upon the back of the rejected one something of the shame and horror of an expulsion; then, as soon as the Nabob had disappeared, they looked at each other with a silent laugh and left the gallery, the old woman not daring to ask them to enlighten her, being warned by her instinct of the bitter hostility of those two. Left alone, she gave all her attention to something else that was being read, convinced that her son's interests were still under discussion. There was talk of elections, of counting ballots, and the poor mother, leaning forward over the rail in her shabby cap, knitting her thick eyebrows, would have listened religiously to the report on the Sarigue election to the very end, had not the usher who had admitted her come to tell her that it was all over and that she had better go.

"Really? It's all over?" she said, rising as if with regret.

And she added, timidly, in a low tone:

"Did he—did he win?"

It was so ingenuous, so touching, that the usher had not the slightest inclination to laugh.

"Unfortunately no, Madame. Monsieur Jansoulet did not win. But why did he stop after he made such a good start? If it's true that he was never in Paris before and that another Jansoulet did all they accuse him of, why didn't he say so?"

The old mother turned very pale and clung to the stair-rail.

She had understood.

Bernard's sudden pause when he caught sight of her, the sacrifice he had offered her so simply with the eloquent glance of a murdered beast came to her mind; by the same blow the shame of the Elder, of the favorite child, was confounded with the other's downfall, a two-edged maternal sorrow, which tore her heart whichever way she turned. Yes, yes, it was for her sake that he had forborne to speak. But she would not accept such a sacrifice. He must return at once and explain himself to the deputies.

"My son? where is my son?"

"Below, Madame, in his carriage. It was he who sent me to look for you."

She darted in front of the usher, walking rapidly, talking aloud, jostling against little black-faced, bearded men who were gesticulating in the corridors. After the Salle des Pas-Perdus, she passed through a great ante-chamber, circular in shape, where servants, drawn up respectfully in line, formed a living, bedizened dado on the high bare wall. From there she could see, through the glass doors, the iron gateway outside, the crowd, and among other waiting carriages the Nabob's. The peasant woman as she passed recognized her enormous neighbor of the gallery talking with the sallow man in spectacles who had declaimed against her son and was receiving all sorts of congratulations and warm grasps of the hand for his speech. Hearing the name of Jansoulet pronounced with an accompaniment of mocking, well-satisfied laughter, she slackened her long stride.

"At all events," said a young dandy with the face of a dissolute woman, "he didn't prove wherein our charges are false."

At that the old woman made a jagged hole through the group and exclaimed, taking her stand in front of MoËssard:

"What he didn't tell you I will tell you. I am his mother, and it's my duty to speak."

She interrupted herself to seize Le Merquier's sleeve as he was slinking away.

"You, above all, you bad man, you are going to listen to me. What have you against my child? Don't you know who he is? Wait a moment and let me tell you."

She turned to the journalist:

"I had two sons, Monsieur—"

MoËssard was no longer there. She returned to Le Merquier:

"Two sons, Monsieur—"

Le Merquier had disappeared.

"Oh! listen to me, some one, I entreat you," said the poor mother, throwing her hands and her words about, to recall, to detain her auditors; but they all fled, melted away, disappeared, deputies, reporters, strange and mocking faces to whom she insisted upon telling her story by main force, heedless of the indifference which greeted her sorrows and her joys, her maternal pride and affection expressed in a jargon of her own. And while she rushed about and labored thus, intensely excited, her cap awry, at once grotesque and sublime like all children of nature in the drama of civilization, calling to witness to her son's uprightness and the injustice of men even the footmen whose contemptuous impassiveness was more cruel than all the rest, Jansoulet, who had come to look for her, being anxious at her non-appearance, suddenly stood beside her.

"Take my arm, mother. You must not stay here."

He spoke very loud, with a manner so composed and calm that all laughter ceased, and the old woman, suddenly quieted, supported by the firm pressure of that arm, clinging to which the last trembling of her indignation vanished, left the palace between two respectful lines of people. A sublime though rustic couple, the son's millions illumining the mother's peasantry like the relics of a saint enclosed in a golden shrine, they disappeared in the bright sunlight, in the splendor of the gorgeous carriage, brutal irony in presence of that sore distress, a striking example of the ghastly poverty of wealth.

They sat side by side on the back seat, for they dreaded to be seen, and at first they did not speak. But as soon as the carriage had started, as soon as they had left behind the sorrowful Calvary where his honor remained on the gibbet, Jansoulet, at the end of his strength, laid his head against his mother's shoulder, hid his face in a fold of the old green shawl, and there, shedding hot tears, his whole body shaken by sobs, the cry of his infancy came once more to his lips, his patois wail when he was a little child: "Mamma! mamma!"