“Magistrates, colonel, I respect, for I was one myself for six months in ‘93, and I know the law. But, returning to my point, I ask monsieur, who is here to answer questions, to me as well as to others, what he thinks about tobacco licenses.”
“My opinion on tobacco licenses! That is rather difficult to formulate; I can, however, say that, if my information is correct, they are usually very well distributed.”
“Hey! hey! you’re a man, you!” cried the inebriate elector, “and I’ll vote for you, for they can’t fool you,—no! But they do give those licenses all wrong! Look at that daughter of Jean Remy. Bad neighbor. Never owned anything but his cart, and fights every day with his wife—”
“But, my good fellow,” said the chairman, interposing, “you are abusing the patience of this assembly.”
“No, no! let him talk!” cried voices from all parts of the room.
The voter was amusing, and Sallenauve himself seemed to let the chairman know he would like to see what the man was driving at.
The elector, being allowed to continue, went on:—
“I was going to say, with due respect to you, colonel, about that daughter of Jean Remy’s,—a man I’ll pursue to hell, for my bounds were in their right place, and them experts was all wrong. Well! what did that slut do? Left her father and mother and went to Paris! What did she do there? I didn’t go to see, but I’m told she made acquaintance with a deputy, and has got the tobacco license for the rue Mouffetard, the longest street in Paris. But I’d like to see my wife, widow of an honest man, doubled up with rheumatism for having slept in the woods during that terror in 1815,—I’d like to see my poor widow get a license!”
“But you are not dead yet,” they shouted to him from all parts of the room. The colonel, meantime, to put an end to the burlesque scene, nodded to a little confectioner who was waiting for the floor, a well-known Republican. The new questioner, in a falsetto voice, put the following insidious question to the candidate,—a question which might, by the way, be called national in Arcis,—
“What does Monsieur think of Danton?”