y, swarm in the provinces; but in 1822 the country
attorney very often united the functions of solicitor and counsel. As
a result of this double life, the attorney acquired the peculiar
intellectual defects of the barrister, and retained the heavy
responsibilities of the attorney. He grew talkative and fluent, and
lost his lucidity of judgment, the first necessity for the conduct of
affairs. If a man of more than ordinary ability tries to do the work
of two men, he is apt to find that the two men are mediocrities. The
Paris attorney never spends himself in forensic eloquence; and as he
seldom attempts to argue for and against, he has some hope of
preserving his mental rectitude. It is true that he brings the balista
of the law to work, and looks for the weapons in the armory of
judicial contradictions, but he keeps his own convictions as to the
case, while he does his best to gain the day. In a word, a man loses
his head not so much by thinking as by uttering thoughts. The spoken
word convinces the utterer; but a man can act against his own bad
judgment without warping it, and contrive to win in a bad cause
without maintaining that it is a good one, like the barrister. Perhaps
for this very reason an old attorney is the more likely of the two to
make a good judge.

A country attorney, as we have seen, has plenty of excuses for his
mediocrity; he takes up the cause of petty passions, he undertakes
pettifogging business, he lives by charging expenses, he strains the
Code of procedure and pleads in court. In a word, his weak points are
legion; and if by chance you come across a remarkable man practising
as a country attorney, he is indeed above the average level.

"I thought, sir, that you sent for me on your own affairs," said
Petit-Claud, and a glance that put an edge on his words fell upon tall
Cointet's impenetrable blue spectacles.

"Let us have no beating about the bush," returned Boniface Cointet.
"Listen to me."

After that beginning, big with mysterious import, Cointet set himself
down upon a bench, and beckoned Petit-Claud to do likewise.

"When M. du Hautoy came to Angouleme in 1804, on his way to his
consulship at Valence, he made the acquaintance of Mme. de Senonches,
then Mlle. Zephirine, and had a daughter by her," added Cointet for
the attorney's ear----"Yes," he continued, as Petit-Claud gave a
start; "yes, and Mlle. Zephirine's marriage with M. de Senoches soon
followed the birth of the child. The g