"Yes," warmly added a stout capped peasant, with a basket once on her arm, now serving as a pedestal to raise the higher above the others her own curiosity. "Yes—she has her modesty—too—to speak for her—"
"Bah—all put on—to soften the jury." It was our fiery one of the table d'hôte who had wedged his way toward us.
"And why not? A woman must make use of what weapons she has at hand—"
"Silence! Silence! messieurs!" The huissier brought down his staff of office with a ring. The clatter of sabots over the wooden floor of the tribune and the loud talking were disturbing the court.
This French court, as a court, sat in strange fashion, it seemed to us. The bench was on wonderfully friendly terms with the table about which the clerks sat, with the lawyers, with the foreman of the jury, with even the huissiers. Monsieur le President was in his robes, but he wore them as negligently as he did the dignity of his office. He and the lawyer for the defence, a noted Coutances orator, openly wrangled; the latter, indeed, took little or no pains to show him respect; now they joked together, next a retort flashed forth which began a quarrel, and the court and the trial looked on as both struggled for a mastery in the art of personal abuse. The lawyer made nothing of raising his finger, to shake it in open menace in the very teeth of the scarlet robes. And the robes clad a purple-faced figure that retorted angrily, like a fighting school-boy.
But to Coutances, this, it appears, was a proper way for a court to sit.
"Ah, D'Alençon—il est fort, lui. C'est lui qui agace toujours monsieur le président—"
"He'll win—he'll make a great speech—he is never really fine unless it's a question of life or death—" Such were the criticisms that were poured out from the quick-speaking lips about us.
Presently a simultaneous movement on the part of the jury brought the proceedings to confusion. A witness in the act of giving evidence stopped short in his sentence; he twisted his head; looking upward, he asked a question of the foreman, and the latter nodded, as if assenting. The judge then looked up. All the court looked up. All the heads were twisted. Something obviously was wrong. Then, presently the concierge appeared with a huge bunch of keys.
And all the court waited in perfect stillness while the windows were being closed!