Le Merquier was reading his report.  The slow, dull monotonous voice, the drawling, weak Lyonnese accent, while the long form of the lawyer balanced itself in an almost animal movement of the head and shoulders, made a singular contrast to the ferocious clearness of the brief.  First, a rapid account of the electoral irregularities.  Never had universal suffrage been treated with such primitive and barbarous contempt.  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.  There had been no respect for the law.  Everywhere fraud, intrigue, even violence.  At Calcatoggio an armed man sat during the election at the window of a tavern in front of the mairie, holding a blunderbuss, and whenever one of Sebastiani’s electors (Sebastiani was Jansoulet’s opponent) showed himself, the man took aim:  “If you come in, I will blow out your brains.”  And when one saw the inspectors of police, justices, inspectors of weights and measures, not afraid to turn into canvassing agents, to frighten or cajole a population too submissive before all these little tyrannical local influences, was that not proof of a terrible state of things?  Even priests, saintly pastors, led astray by their zeal for the poor-box and the restoration of an impoverished building, had preached a mission in favour of Jansoulet’s election.  But an influence still more powerful, though less respectable, had been called into play for the good cause—­the influence of the banditti.  “Yes, banditti, gentlemen; I am not joking.”  And then came a sketch in outline of Corsican banditti in general, and of the Piedigriggio family in particular.

The Chamber listened attentively, with a certain uneasiness.  For, after all, it was an official candidate whose doings were thus described, and these strange doings belonged to that privileged land, cradle of the imperial family, so closely attached to the fortunes of the dynasty, that an attack on Corsica seemed to strike at the sovereign.  But when people saw the new minister, successor and enemy of Mora, glad of the blow to a protege of his predecessor, smile complacently from the Government bench at Le Merquier’s cruel banter, all constraint disappeared at once, and the ministerial smile repeated on three hundred mouths, grew into a scarcely restrained laugh—­the laugh of crowds under the rod which bursts out at the least approbation of the master.  In the galleries, not usually treated to the picturesque, but amused by these stories of brigands, there was general joy, a radiant animation on all these faces, pleased to look pretty without insulting the solemnity of the spot.  Little bright bonnets shook with all their flowers and plumes, round gold-encircled arms leaned forward the better to hear.  The grave Le Merquier had imported into the sitting the distraction of a show, the little spice of humour allowed in a charity concert to bribe the uninitiated.