is
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-Jerome 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 en