very object we are met to discuss. I
demand permission to speak."

"Monsieur Achille Pigoult has the floor," said Beauvisage, at last
able to pronounce that phrase with all his municipal and constitutional
dignity.

"Messieurs," said the notary, "if there is a house in Arcis in which
no voice should be raised against the influence of the Comte de
Gondreville, it is surely the one we are now in. The worthy Colonel
Giguet is the only person in it who has not sought the benefits of the
senatorial power; he, at least, has never asked anything of the Comte de
Gondreville, who took his name off the list of exiles in 1815 and caused
him to receive the pension which the colonel now enjoys without lifting
a finger to obtain it."

A murmur, flattering to the old soldier, greeted this observation.

"But," continued the orator, "the Marions are covered with the count's
benefits. Without that influence, the late Colonel Giguet would not have
commanded the gendarmerie of the Aube. The late Monsieur Marion would
not have been chief-justice of the Imperial court without the protection
of the count, to whom I myself have every reason to be thankful. You
will therefore think it natural that I should be his advocate within
these walls. There are, indeed, few persons in this arrondissement who
have not received benefits from that family."

[Murmurs.]

"A candidate puts himself in the stocks," continued Achille Pigoult,
warming up. "I have the right to scrutinize his life before I invest him
with my powers. I do not desire ingratitude in the delegate I may
help to send to the Chamber, for ingratitude is like misfortune--one
ingratitude leads to others. We have been, he tells us, the
stepping-stone of the Kellers; well, from what I have heard here, I am
afraid we may become the stepping-stone of the Giguets. We live in a
practical age, do we not? Well, then, let us examine into what will be
the results to the arrondissement of Arcis if Simon Giguet is elected.
They talk to you of independence! Simon, whom I thus maltreat as
candidate, is my personal friend, as he is that of all who hear me, and
I should myself be charmed to see him the orator of the Left, seated
between Garnier-Pages and Lafitte; but how would that benefit the
arrondissement? The arrondissement would lose the support of the Comte
de Gondreville and the Kellers. We all, in the course of five years,
have had and shall have need of the one and of the others. Some have