rusque language, broken
up by parentheses, and his rough gestures, was at times at once as
fierce as a soldier and as passionate as a tribune. Towards the
middle of his discourse he became an advocate, which, as far as I
was concerned, spoiled the man; the harangue became a speech for the
defence. But at its conclusion he roused himself again with a sort of
real indignation. He pounded on the desk with his fist and overturned
the glass of water, much to the consternation of the ushers, and in
terminating he said:

"I have been speaking for I know not how long; I will speak again all
the evening, all night, all day to-morrow, if necessary, and it will no
longer be as an advocate, but as a soldier, and you will listen to me!"

The whole Assembly applauded him enthusiastically.

M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, who attacked Cavaignac, was an orator cold,
rigid, somewhat dry and by no means equal to the task, his anger being
without fierceness and his hatred without passion. He began by reading
a memoir, which always displeases assemblies. The Assembly, which was
secretly ill-disposed and angry, was eager to crush him. It only wanted
pretexts; he furnished it with motives. The grave defect in his memoir
was that serious accusations were built upon petty acts, a surcharge
that caused the whole system to bend. This little pallid man who
continually raised one leg behind him and leaned forward with his two
hands on the edge of the tribune as though he were gazing down into a
well, made those who did not hiss laugh. Amid the uproar of the Assembly
he affected to write at considerable length in a copybook, to dry the
ink by sprinkling powder upon it, and with great deliberation to pour
the powder back into the powder-box, thus finding means to increase the
tumult with his calmness. When M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire descended
from the tribune, Cavaignac had only been attacked. He had not then
replied, yet was already absolved.

M. Garnier-Pages, tried Republican and honest man, but with a substratum
of vanity and an emphatic manner, succeeded M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire.
The Assembly tried to crush him, too, but he rose again amid murmurs.
He reminded his hearers of his past, invoked recollections of the Salle
Voisin, compared the henchmen of Cavaignac to the henchmen of Guizot,
bared his breast "which had braved the poignards of the Red Republic,"
and ended by resolutely attacking the general, with too few facts and
too m