firmness of character."

Nothing progresses so rapidly as a legal revolt. That evening Madame
Marion and her friends organized for the morrow a meeting of
"independent electors" in the interests of Simon Giguet, the colonel's
son. The morrow had now come and had turned the house topsy-turvy to
receive the friends on whose independence the leaders of the movement
counted. Simon Giguet, the native-born candidate of a little town
jealously desirous to elect a son of its own, had, as we have seen,
put to profit this desire; and yet, the whole prosperity and fortune
of the Giguet family were the work of the Comte de Gondreville. But
when it comes to an election, what are sentiments!

This Scene is written for the information of countries so unfortunate
as not to know the blessings of national representation, and which
are, therefore, ignorant by what intestinal convulsions, what
Brutus-like sacrifices, a little town gives birth to a deputy. Majestic
but natural spectacle, which may, indeed, be compared with that of
childbirth,--the same throes, the same impurities, the same
lacerations, the same final triumph!

It may be asked why an only son, whose fortune was sufficient, should
be, like Simon Giguet, an ordinary barrister in a little country town
where barristers are pretty nearly useless. A word about the candidate
is therefore necessary.

Colonel Giguet had had, between 1806 and 1813, by his wife who died in
1814, three children, the eldest of whom, Simon, alone survived. Until
he became an only child, Simon was brought up as a youth to whom the
exercise of a profession would be necessary. And about the time he