nearer being a statesman than my friend Simon, who will not pretend to
have made himself a Pitt or a Talleyrand in a little town like
Arcis--"

"Danton went from it!" cried Colonel Giguet, furious at Achille's
speech and the justice of it.

"Bravo!"

This was an acclamation, and sixty persons clapped their hands.

"My father has a ready wit," whispered Simon Giguet to Beauvisage.

"I do not understand why, apropos of an election," continued the old
colonel, rising suddenly, with the blood boiling in his face, "we
should be hauled up for the ties which connect us with the Comte de
Gondreville. My son's fortune comes from his mother; he has asked
nothing of the Comte de Gondreville. The comte might never have
existed and Simon would have been what he now is,--the son of a
colonel of artillery who owes his rank to his services; a man whose
opinions have never varied. I should say openly to the Comte de
Gondreville if he were present: 'We have elected your son-in-law for
twenty years; to-day we wish to prove that in so doing we acted of our
own free-will, and we now elect a man of Arcis, in order to show that
the old spirit of 1789, to which you owe your fortune, still lives in
the land of Danton, Malin, Grevin, Pigoult, Marion--That is all!"

And the old man sat down. Whereupon a great hubbub arose. Achille
opened his mouth to reply. Beauvisage, who would not have thought
himself chairman unless he had rung his bell, increased the racket,