net, the
substitute _procureur_, and the judge, Michu,--the three best minds in
the court.

Simon Giguet, like other men, paid goodly tribute to the mighty power of
ridicule that pursued him. He liked to hear himself talk, and he talked
on all occasions; he solemnly delivered himself of dry and long-winded
sentences which passed for eloquence among the upper bourgeoisie of
Arcis. The poor fellow belonged to that species of bore which desires
to explain everything, even the simplest thing. He explained rain; he
explained the revolution of July; he explained things impenetrable; he
explained Louis-Philippe, Odilon Barrot, Monsieur Thiers, the Eastern
Question; he explained Champagne; he explained 1788; he explained the
tariff of custom houses and humanitarians, magnetism and the economy of
the civil list.

This lean young man, with a bilious skin, tall enough to justify his
sonorous nullity (for it is rare that a tall man does not have eminent
faculties of some kind) outdid the puritanism of the votaries of the
extreme Left, all of them so sensitive, after the manner of prudes who
have their intrigues to hide. Dressed invariably in black, he wore a
white cravat which came down low on his chest, so that his face seemed
to issue from a horn of white paper, for the collar of his shirt was
high and stiff after a fashion now, fortunately, exploded. His trousers
and his coats were always too large for him. He had what is called
in the provinces dignity; that is to say, he was stiffly erect and
pompously dull in manner. His friend, Antonin Goulard, accused him of
imitating Monsieur Dupin. And in truth, the young barrister was apt to
wear shoes and stout socks of black filoselle.

Protected by the respect that every one bore to his father, and by
the influence exercised by his aunt over a little town whose principal
inhabitants had frequented her salon for many years, Simon Giguet,
possessing already ten thousand francs a year, not counting the fees
of his profession and the fortune his aunt would not fail to leave him,
felt no doubt of his election. Nevertheless, the first sound of the bell
announcing the arrival of the most influential electors echoed in the
heart of the ambitious aspirant and filled it with vague fears. Simon
did not conceal from himself the cleverness and the immense resources
of old Grevin, nor the prestige attending the means that would surely be
employed by the ministry to promote the candidacy of a you