nting miracles, and
ascending the broad staircase, the walls of which were whitewashed like
those of a convent, Jansoulet felt permeated with that provincial and
Catholic atmosphere wherein the memories of his Southern past revived,
childish impressions still fresh and intact, thanks to his long exile,
impressions which the son of Francoise had had neither time nor occasion
to disown since his arrival in Paris. Worldly hypocrisy had assumed all
its different shapes before him, tried all its masks, except that of
religious integrity. So that he refused in his own mind to believe in
the venality of a man who lived in such surroundings. Ushered into the
advocate's waiting-room, a large parlor with curtains of starched muslin
as fine as that of which surplices are made, its only ornament a large
and beautiful copy of Tintoret's _Dead Christ_ over the door, his
uncertainty and anxiety changed to indignant conviction. It was not
possible. He had been misled touching Le Merquier. Surely it was an
impudent slander, such as Paris is so ready to spread; or perhaps they
were laying another one of those wicked traps for him, against which he
had done nothing but stumble for six months past. No, that timid
conscience renowned at the Palais de Justice and the Chamber, that
cold, austere man could not be dealt with like those coarse, pot-bellied
pashas, with their loose belts and floating sleeves so convenient as
receptacles for purses of sequins. He would expose himself to a shameful
refusal, to the natural revolt of outraged honor, if he should attempt
such methods of bribery.

The Nabob said this to himself as he sat on the oak bench that ran
around the room, polished by serge gowns and the rough broadcloth of
cassocks. Notwithstanding the early hour, several persons beside himself
were waiting. A Dominican striding back and forth, ascetic and serene of
face, two nuns buried in their hoods, telling their beads on long
rosaries which measured their time of waiting, priests from the diocese
of Lyon, recognizable from the shape of their hats, and other persons of
stern and meditative mien seated by the great table of black wood which
stood in the centre of the room, and turning the leaves of some of those
edifying periodicals which are printed on the hill of Fourvieres, the
_Echoes from Purgatory_, or _Marie's Rose-bush_, and which give as
premiums to yearly subscribers papal indulgences, absolution for future
sins. A few words in a l