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They said five millions on the boulevard the next day, and every one cried shame, especially the Messager, which gave up three-quarters of its space to an article against certain adventurers who are tolerated in clubs, and who cause the ruin of the most respectable families. Alas! Jansoulet's winnings hardly represented the amount of the first Schwalbach notes.
Jansoulet's skirts, squeezing her to him, while holding out his smooth forehead, covered with brown curls, with the grace of a child offering its kiss like a flower. Perhaps this one, nearer the warmth of the nest, the cradling knees of the nurses with their peasant songs, had felt the maternal influence, of which the Levantine had deprived him, reach his heart.
But the most general expression was one of indifference and boredom. What could it matter to them, I ask you; what had they to do with Jansoulet's childhood in the Bourg-Saint-Andeol, the trials he had endured, the way in which he had trudged his path? They had not come to listen to idle nonsense of that kind.
It may be imagined that the check-book and the three deep drawers in the mahogany cabinet were not spared by this hoard of devouring locusts which had fallen upon "Moussiou Jansoulet's" dwelling. Nothing could be more comic than the haughty manner in which these good islanders effected their loans, briskly, and with an air of defiance.
At Sarlazaccio, where Jansoulet's opponent seemed likely to carry the day, the ballot-box was destroyed during the night preceding the counting. The same thing, or almost the same, happened at Lévie, at Saint-André, at Avabessa.
It seemed as though a disastrous gust of wind had gone through the house, carrying off a little of its calm, and allowing disquiet and danger to filter into its comfort. "What a misfortune!" "Ah! it is terrible." "And so suddenly!" Such were the remarks that people were exchanging as they met. An idea flashed into Jansoulet's mind: "Is the duke ill?" he inquired of a servant.
It comes down to us from the ancients. There, she's ringing her bell now. Some one will come to call me. Do you want me to tell her that you are here?" "No, no, I prefer to go to the Chamber at once." "But you have no card of admission, have you?" "Bah! I'll say that I am Jansoulet's mother and that I have come to hear my son tried."
Sitting in the centre of the porch, as if it were the proscenium of his theatre, Cardailhac, while superintending the rehearsals, issued his commands to a multitude of workmen and gardeners, ordered trees to be felled which obstructed the view, drew sketches of the triumphal arches, sent despatches and messengers to mayors, to sub-prefects, to Arles to procure a deputation of girls of the province in the national costume, to Barbantane, where the most skilful dancers of the farandole are to be found, to Faraman renowned for its herds of wild bulls and Camarguese horses; and as Jansoulet's name blazed forth at the foot of all these despatches, as the name of the Bey of Tunis also figured in them, everybody acquiesced with the utmost eagerness, the telegraphic messages arrived in an endless stream, and that little Sardanapalus from Porte-Saint-Martin, who was called Cardailhac, was forever repeating: "There is something to work with;" delighted to throw gold about like handfuls of seed, to have a stage fifty leagues in circumference to arrange, all Provence, of which country that fanatical Parisian was a native, and thoroughly familiar with its resources in the direction of the picturesque.
In the Jansoulet's country there is still, in some old churches, at the end of the choir, half-way up the crypt, a stone cell where lepers were admitted to hear mass, showing their dark profiles to the curious and fearful crowd, like wild beasts crouched against the loopholes in the wall.
At Sarlazaccio, where Jansoulet's rival seemed to have a majority, the ballot-box was destroyed the night before it was counted. The same thing almost happened at Levia, at Saint-Andre, at Avabessa. And it was the mayors themselves who committed these crimes, who carried the urns home with them, broke the seals, tore up the voting papers, under cover of their municipal authority.
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