ated on three hundred
mouths, grew into a scarcely restrained laugh--the laugh of crowds under
the rod which bursts out at the least approbation of the master. In the
galleries, not usually treated to the picturesque, but amused by these
stories of brigands, there was general joy, a radiant animation on all
these faces, pleased to look pretty without insulting the solemnity of
the spot. Little bright bonnets shook with all their flowers and plumes,
round gold-encircled arms leaned forward the better to hear. The grave
Le Merquier had imported into the sitting the distraction of a show,
the little spice of humour allowed in a charity concert to bribe the
uninitiated.

Impassable and cold in the midst of his success, he continued to read in
his gloomy voice, penetrating like the rain of Lyons:

"Now, gentlemen, one asks how a stranger, a Provencial returned from the
East, ignorant of the interests and needs of this island where he had
never been seen before the election, a true type of what the Corsican
disdainfully calls a 'continental'--how has this man been able to excite
such an enthusiasm, such devotion carried to crime, to profanity.
His wealth will answer us, his fatal gold thrown in the face of the
electors, thrust by force into their pockets with a barefaced cynicism
of which we have a thousand proofs." Then the interminable series of
denunciations: "I, the undersigned, Croce (Antoine), declare in the
interests of truth, that the Commissary of Police Nardi, calling on us
one evening, said: 'Listen, Croce (Antoine), I swear by the fire of this
lamp that if you vote for Jansoulet you will have fifty francs
to-morrow morning.'" And this other: "I, the undersigned, Lavezzi
(Jacques-Alphonse), declare that I refused with contempt seventeen
francs offered me by the Mayor of Pozzonegro to vote against my
cousin Sebastiani." It is probably that for three francs more Lavezzi
(Jacques-Alphonse) would have swallowed his contempt in silence. But the
Chamber did not look into things so closely.

Indignation seized on this incorruptible Chamber. It murmured, it
fidgeted on its padded seats of red velvet, it raised a positive
clamour. There were "Oh's" of amazement, eyes lifted in astonishment,
brusque movements on the benches, as if in disgust at this spectacle of
human degradation. And remark that the greater part of these deputies
had used the same electoral methods, that these were the heroes of those
famous orgies when