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At a former election for the county, I attended on the day of nomination, at the townhall at Devizes, and, after Ambrose Goddard and Henry Penruddock Wyndham, Esgrs., had, in the usual form, been proposed and seconded, when the sheriff was about to put it to the vote, I stepped forward, and desired that, before the show of hands was taken, I might ask a question or two of the candidates who were the late members.
In front of the townhall a dais had been erected for the convenience of the sheriffs, mayor, and town councilors. A guard of honor stood in front of the dais, and the scaffold was environed by soldiers three deep. Valentine tried to get into the hindermost row. He wanted to see as little as possible of the terrible spectacle.
So, by your leave, the townhall first and my own house afterward." And when Valentine explained in the council the actual situation of affairs, everyone said that he had acted quite rightly. The Prince of Transylvania, in order to bring King Ferdinand over to his side, had surrendered to him the five counties on this side of the Theiss which had been ceded to Transylvania by the Peace of Linz.
And Valentine did understand it, but he would not take the hint. He told the coachman to drive direct to the townhall. The civic coachman was a very old man. He had many a time driven Valentine's father on the business of the town, and was also very much attached to his son. "Mr. Sheriff," he inquired, as they passed beneath the portcullis, "hadn't we better drive home first of all?"
The municipal information collected at that time had even reached the convent of the Petit-Picpus, a sort of impenetrable and holy cloud, whence Jean Valjean had emerged in venerable guise, and, consequently, worthy of mounting guard in the eyes of the townhall.
It is very odd that fine towns always are approached by dirty suburbs; a covert symbolical satire, perhaps, on the ways to success in fine towns. Avarice or ambition go through very mean little streets before they gain the place which they jostle the crowd to win, in the Townhall or on 'Change.
Then, pursued by the reviling and hissing of the populace, she had been taken to prison. Now she again saw herself amid the vile rabble assembled there, again felt how eagerly she inhaled the air as she was led across the courtyard of the townhall into the presence of the magistrates. Oh, if she could but take such a long, deep breath of God's pure air as she did then! But that time was past.
It is very odd that fine towns always are approached by dirty suburbs; a covert symbolical satire, perhaps, on the ways to success in fine towns. Avarice or ambition go through very mean little streets before they gain the place which they jostle the crowd to win, in the Townhall or on 'Change.
Then the four youngest town-councilors seized the four legs of the chair and raised it, Valentine and all, on to their shoulders, and carried him out on the balcony of the townhall, while the hundred electors in the council-chamber shouted aloud, "Vivat!"
The townhall is in the hollow farther on. Then comes the big hill "Whittaker's Hill" and from the top of this hill you can, on a clear day, see for miles across the salt marshes and over the bay to the eastward, and west as far as the church steeple in Orham.
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