He did not know what it meant, but the words had a grandeur and a something that appealed to his imagination.  After la Peyrade had explained to him that by “conspiracy of silence” was meant the agreement of existing journals to make no mention of new-comers lest such notice should serve to advertise them, Thuillier’s mind was hardly better satisfied than it had been by the pompous flow of the words.  The bourgeois is born so; words are coins which he takes and passes without question.  For a word, he will excite himself or calm down, insult or applaud.  With a word, he can be brought to make a revolution and overturn a government of his own choice.

The paper, however, was only a means; the object was Thuillier’s election.  This was insinuated rather than stated in the first numbers.  But one morning, in the columns of the “Echo,” appeared a letter from several electors thanking their delegate to the municipal council for the firm and frankly liberal attitude in which he had taken on all questions of local interests.  “This firmness,” said the letter, “had brought down upon him the persecution of the government, which, towed at the heels of foreigners, had sacrificed Poland and sold itself to England.  The arrondissement needed a man of such tried convictions to represent it in the Chamber,—­a man holding high and firm the banner of dynastic opposition, a man who would be, by the mere signification of his name, a stern lesson given to the authorities.”

Enforced by an able commentary from la Peyrade, this letter was signed by Barbet and Metivier and all Brigitte’s tradesmen (whom, in view of the election she had continued to employ since her emigration); also by the family doctor and apothecary, and by Thuillier’s builder, and Barniol, Phellion’s son-in-law, who professed to hold rather “advanced” political opinions.  As for Phellion himself, he thought the wording of the letter not altogether circumspect, and—­always without fear as without reproach—­however much he might expect that this refusal would injure his son in his dearest interests, he bravely refrained from signing it.

This trial kite had the happiest effect.  The ten or a dozen names thus put forward were considered to express the will of the electors and were called “the voice of the quarter.”  Thus Thuillier’s candidacy made from the start such rapid progress that Minard hesitated to put his own claims in opposition.

Delighted now with the course of events, Brigitte was the first to say that the time had come to attend to the marriage, and Thuillier was all the more ready to agree because, from day to day, he feared he might be called upon to pay the twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert for which he had pledged himself.  A thorough explanation now took place between la Peyrade and the old maid.  She told him honestly of the fear she felt as to the maintenance of her sovereign authority when a son-in-law of his mind and character was established in the household.