At three o'clock Simon Giguet was still explaining Progress,
accompanied by the rhythmic snores of various electors which denoted a
sound sleep. The malicious Achille Pigoult had urged all present to
listen religiously to the young orator, who was now floundering in his
phrases and paraphrases hopelessly at random.



V

THE PERPLEXITIES OF THE GOVERNMENT IN ARCIS

At this moment several groups of bourgeois, electors and non-electors,
were standing before the Chateau d'Arcis, the iron gates of which open
on the square near to the door of Madame Marion's house. This square
is a piece of open ground from which issue several roads and several
streets. In it is a covered market. Opposite to the chateau, on the
other side of the square, which is neither paved nor macadamized, and
where the rain has made various little gutters, is a fine esplanade,
called the Avenue of Sighs. Is that to the honor or to the blame of
the leaders of the town? This singular ambibology is no doubt a stroke
of native wit.

Two handsome side avenues, planted with lindens, lead from the square
to a circular boulevard which forms another promenade, though usually
deserted, where more dirt and rubbish than promenaders may commonly be
seen.

At the height of the discussion which Achille Pigoult was dramatizing