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Updated: June 5, 2025
I will tell them I am Jansoulet's mother, come to hear him judged." Poor mother, she spoke truer than she knew. "Wait, Mme. Francoise. I will give you some one to show you the way, at least." "Oh, you know, I have never been able to put up with servants. I have a tongue. There are people in the streets. I shall find my way." He made a last attempt, without letting her see all his thought.
Why, even the priests, consecrated pastors, led astray by their zealous interest in the poor-box and the maintenance of their impoverished churches, preached a veritable crusade in favor of Jansoulet's election. But an even more powerful, although less respectable, influence was set at work for the good cause, the influence of bandits. "Yes, bandits, Messieurs, I am not jesting."
He was decidedly in disgrace in that quarter. The Hemerlingues were triumphant. A last affront had filled up the measure. At Jansoulet's departure, the Bey had commissioned him to have gold-pieces struck at the Paris Mint of a new design to the value of several millions; then the order, suddenly withdrawn, had been given to Hemerlingue.
Nearly all have their good points, as might be expected of the creator of his two fellow Provencals, Numa and Tartarin, the latter being probably the only really cosmopolitan figure in recent literature; but some, like the Hemerlingues, verge upon mere sketches; others, like Jansoulet's obese wife, upon caricatures.
It seemed as if a sudden blast of disaster had passed through the house, swept away something of its superb tranquillity and allowed unrest and danger to creep into its well-being. "What a misfortune!" "Ah! yes, it is terrible." "And so sudden!" The people around him exchanged such phrases as they met. A thought passed swiftly through Jansoulet's mind. "Is the duke ill?" he asked a servant.
"Your card, my good woman?" The "good woman" had no card, but she said quite simply to one of the porters in red who were keeping the door: "I am Bernard Jansoulet's mother. I have come for the sitting of my boy."
New appearance of the man in red breeches with the check-book which he carries clasped gravely to his chest, like a choir-boy moving the Gospel from one side to the other. New inscription of Jansoulet's signature upon a slip, which the governor pockets with a negligent air and which operates on his person a sudden transformation.
Before leaving the room, the children solemnly shook once more the wrinkled, calloused hand of their grandmother, who was watching them walk away, utterly bewildered and with a sore heart, when, yielding to an adorable, spontaneous impulse, the youngest of the three, having reached the door, suddenly turned, pushed the great negro aside, and plunged head foremost, like a little buffalo, into Mère Jansoulet's skirts, throwing his arms around her and holding up to her his smooth brow splashed with brown curls, with the sweet grace of the child who offers his caress like a flower.
The task was made even more difficult at M. Jansoulet's by the swarm of foreigners, Turks, Egyptians, Persians, Tunisians.
The big man puffed violently into the flowers of his wife's little white hat. Jansoulet's mother looked at her son. "I have spoken of the honour of the Chamber, gentlemen. On that point I have more to say." Now Le Merquier was reading no longer. After the chairman of the committees, the orator came on the scene, or rather the judge.
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