To see these excited or thoughtful people, you might have supposed them the greatest apostles of ideas in the world; unfortunately, on the days of the sittings they underwent a transformation, sat in hushed silence in their places, laughing in servile fashion at the jests of the clever man who presided over them, or only rising to make ridiculous propositions, the kind of interruption which would tempt one to believe that it is not a type only, but a whole race, that Henri Monnier has satirized in his immortal sketch.  Two or three orators in all the Chamber, the rest well qualified to plant themselves before the fireplace of a provincial drawing-room, after an excellent meal at the Prefect’s, and to say in nasal voice, “The administration, gentlemen,” or “The Government of the Emperor,” but incapable of anything further.

Ordinarily the good Nabob had been dazzled by these poses, that buzzing as of an empty spinning-wheel which is made by would-be important people; but to-day he found his own place, and fell in with the general note.  Seated at the centre of the green table, his portfolio open before him, his elbows planted well forward upon it, he read the report drawn up by de Gery, and the members of the committee looked at him in amazement.

It was a concise, clear, and rapid summary of their fortnight’s proceedings, in which they found their ideas so well expressed that they had great difficulty in recognising them.  Then, as two or three among them considered the report too favourable, that it passed too lightly over certain protests that had reached the committee, the examiner addressed the meeting with an astonishing assurance, with the prolixity, the verbosity of his own people, demonstrated that a deputy ought not to be held responsible beyond a certain point for the imprudence of his election agents, that no election, otherwise, would bear a minute examination, and since in reality it was his own cause that he was pleading, he brought to the task a conviction, an irresistible enthusiasm, taking care to let out now and then one of those long, dull substantives with a thousand feet, such as the committee loved.

The others listened to him thoughtfully, communicating their sentiments to each other by nods of the head, making flourishes, in order the better to concentrate their attention, and drawing heads on their blotting-pads—­a proceeding which harmonized well with the schoolboyish noises in the corridors, a murmur of lessons in course of repetition, and those droves of sparrows which you could hear chirping under the casements in a flagged court-yard, just like the court-yard of a school.  The report having been adopted, M. Sarigue was summoned in order that he might offer some supplementary explanations.  He arrived, pale, emaciated, stuttering like a criminal before conviction, and you would have laughed to see with what an air of authority and protection Jansoulet encouraged and reassured him.  “Calm yourself, my dear colleague.”  But the members of Committee No. 8 did not laugh.  They were all, or nearly all, Sarigues in their way, two or three of them being absolutely broken down, stricken by partial paralysis.  So much assurance, such great eloquence, had moved them to enthusiasm.