BUNERAT. Ah, yes! When I said: "c.o.c.k, turn yourself on and let your confession trickle out!"

MOUZON [_laughing_] That was it! That was it! And the witness for the defence--that idiot. Didn't you make him look a fool? He couldn't finish his evidence, they laughed so when you said: "If you wish to conduct the case, only say so. Perhaps you'd like to take my place?"

BUNERAT. Ah, yes! Ladies, my good friend here reminds me of a rather amusing anecdote. The other day--it was in the Correctional Court--

THE MANSERVANT [_announcing_] Monsieur Gabriel Ardeuil.

SCENE VI:--_The same, with Ardeuil._

ARDEUIL [_to Madame Vagret_] I hope you'll forgive me for coming so late. I was detained until now.

MADAME VAGRET. I will forgive you all the more readily since I'm told you have had such a success to-day as will make all the advocates of the district jealous of you.

_Ardeuil is left to himself._

LA BOUZOLE [_touching him on the shoulder_] Young man--come, sit down by me--as a favor. Do you realize that it won't take many trials like to-day's to get you struck off the rolls?

ARDEUIL. I couldn't be struck off the rolls because--

LA BOUZOLE. Hang it all--a man does himself no good by appearing singular.

ARDEUIL. Singular! But you yourself--Well, the deliberations are secret, but for all that I know you stand for independence and goodness of heart in this Court.

LA BOUZOLE. Yes, I've permitted myself that luxury--lately.

ARDEUIL. Lately?

LA BOUZOLE. Yes, yes, my young friend, for some little time. Because for some little time I've been cured of the disease which turns so many honest fellows into bad magistrates. That disease is the fever of promotion. Look at those men there. If they weren't infected by this microbe, they would be just, kindly gentlemen, instead of cruel and servile magistrates.

ARDEUIL. You exaggerate, sir. The French magistracy is not--

LA BOUZOLE. It is not venal--that's the truth. Among our four thousand magistrates you might perhaps not find one--you hear me, not one--even among the poorest and most obscure--who would accept a money bribe in order to modify his judgment. That is the glory of our country's magistracy and its special virtue. But a great number of our magistrates are ready to be complaisant--even to give way--when it is a question of making themselves agreeable to an influential elector, or to the deputy, or to the minister who distributes appointments and favors. Universal suffrage is the G.o.d and the tyrant of the magistrate. So you are right--and I am not wrong.

ARDEUIL. Nothing can deprive us of our independence.

LA BOUZOLE. That is so. But, as Monsieur de Tocqueville once remarked, we can offer it up as a sacrifice.

ARDEUIL. You are a misanthrope. There are magistrates whom no promise of any kind--

LA BOUZOLE. Yes, there are. Those who are not needy or who have no ambitions. Yes, there are obscure persons who devote their whole lives to their professions and who never ask for anything for themselves. But you can take my word for it that they are the exceptions, and that our Court of Mauleon, which you yourself have seen, represents about the average of our judicial morality. I exaggerate, you think? Well! Let us suppose that in all France there are only fifty Courts like this.

Suppose there are only twenty--suppose there is only one. It is still one too many! Why, my young friend, what sort of an idea have you got of the magistracy?

ARDEUIL. It frightens me.

LA BOUZOLE. You are speaking seriously?

ARDEUIL. Certainly.

LA BOUZOLE. Then why did you become a subst.i.tute?

ARDEUIL. Through no choice of my own! My people pushed me into the profession.

LA BOUZOLE. Yes. People look on the magistracy as a career. That is to say, from the moment you enter it you have only one object--to get on.

[_A pause_]

ARDEUIL. Yet it would be a n.o.ble thing--to dispense justice tempered with mercy.

LA BOUZOLE. Yes--it should be. [_A pause_] Do you want the advice of a man who has for forty years been a judge of the third cla.s.s?

ARDEUIL. I should value it.

LA BOUZOLE. Send in your resignation. You have mistaken your vocation.

You wear the wrong robe. The man who attempts to put into practice the ideas you have expressed must wear the priest's ca.s.sock.

ARDEUIL [_as though to himself_] Yes--but for that one must have a simple heart--a heart open to faith.

BUNERAT [_who is with the others_] If only we had the luck to have a deputy of the department for Keeper of the Seals! Just for a week!

LA BOUZOLE [_to Ardeuil_] There, my boy, that's the sort of thing one has to think about.

THE MANSERVANT [_entering_] From his Honor the President of a.s.sizes.

[_He gives Vagret a letter_]

VAGRET. He isn't coming?

MADAME VAGRET [_after reading the note_] He isn't coming.

BUNERAT. I hardly expected him.

MADAME VAGRET. A nervous headache he says. He left by the 6:49 train.

MOUZON. That's significant!

MADAME BUNERAT. It would be impossible to mark his disapproval more clearly.

BUNERAT. Three acquittals too!

MADAME BUNERAT. If it had been a question of celebrated pleaders! But newly fledged advocates!

BUNERAT. n.o.bodies!

MADAME VAGRET [_to her daughter_] My poor child! What will his report be like?

BERTHA. What report?

MADAME VAGRET. Don't you know? At the close of each session the President submits a report to the Minister--Ah, my dear Madame Bunerat!

[_The three women seat themselves at the back of the stage_]