Written down, the words may appear cold; but there, before the assembly, the defence of this man was stamped with an eloquent and grandiose sincerity, which at first, coming from this rustic, this upstart, without culture or education, with the voice of a boatman, first astonished and then singularly moved his hearers just on account of its wild, uncultivated style, foreign to every notion of parliamentary etiquette.  Already marks of favour had agitated members, used to the flood of gray and monotonous administrative speech.  But at this cry of rage and despair against wealth, uttered by the wretch whom it was enfolding, rolling, drowning in its floods of gold, while he was struggling and calling for help from the depths of his Pactolus, the whole Chamber rose with loud applause, and outstretched hands, as if to give the unfortunate Nabob more testimonies of esteem, of which he was so desirous, and at the same time to save him from shipwreck.  Jansoulet felt it; and warmed by this sympathy, he went on, with head erect and confident look: 

“You have just been told, gentlemen, that I was unworthy of sitting among you.  And he who said it was the last from whom I should have expected it, for he alone knew the sad secret of my life, he alone could speak for me, justify me, and convince you.  He has not done it.  Well, I will try, whatever it may cost me.  Outrageously calumniated before my country, I owe it to myself and my children this public justification, and I will make it.”

With a brusque movement he turned towards the tribune where he knew his enemy was watching him, and suddenly stopped, full of fear.  There, in front of him, behind the pale, malignant head of the baroness, his mother, his mother whom he believed to be two hundred leagues away from the terrible storm, was looking at him, leaning against the wall, bending down her saintly face, flooded with tears, but proud and beaming nevertheless with her Bernard’s great success.  For it was really a success of sincere human emotion, which a few more words would change into a triumph.  Cries of “Go on, go on!” came from all sides of the Chamber to reassure and encourage him.  But Jansoulet did not speak.  He had only to say:  “Calumny has wilfully confused two names.  I am called Bernard Jansoulet, the other Jansoulet Louis.”  Not a word more was needed.

But in the presence of his mother, still ignorant of his brother’s dishonour, he could not say it.  Respect—­family ties forbade it.  He could hear his father’s voice:  “I die of shame, my child.”  Would not she die of shame too, if he spoke?  He turned from the maternal smile with a sublime look of renunciation, then in a low voice, utterly discouraged, he said: 

“Excuse me, gentlemen; this explanation is beyond my power.  Order an investigation of my whole life, open as it is to all, alas! since any one can interpret all my actions.  I swear to you that you will find nothing there which unfits me to sit among the representatives of my country.”