Ation was accomplished with such dexterity, that many of those present
at the spectacle asked of their neighbours if it was already finished;
and were told that it was; upon which they remarked, that it was the
last time they would put themselves so much out of the way for so
little. Three months had passed since the head and body of Peter Leroux
had been cast into a corner of the cemetery, and, in all probability,
the grave no longer concealed aught but his bones, when a new session of
assizes was opened, and M. Desalleux had again to support a capital
indictment. The day previous, he quitted at an early hour a ball to
which he had been invited with all his family, at a chateau in the
environs, and returned alone to the city, in order to prepare his case
for the morrow. The night was dark; a warm wind from the south whistled
drearily, while the buzz of the gay scene that he had left seemed to
linger in his ears. A feeling of melancholy stole over him. The memory
of many people whom he had known, and who were dead, returned to his
mind; and, scarcely knowing why, he began to think of Peter Leroux.
Nevertheless, as he drew near the city, and the first lights of the
suburbs began to appear, all his sombre ideas vanished, and as soon as
he found himself again at his desk, surrounded by his books and papers,
he thought no longer of anything but his oration, which he had
determined should be even yet more brilliant than any that had preceded
it. His system of indictment was already nearly settled. It is singular,
by the way, that French legal expression, a 'system of indictment'--that
is to say, an absolute manner of grouping an _ensemble_ of facts and
proofs, in virtue of which the prosecutor appropriates to himself the
head of a man--as one would say, 'a system of philosophy'--that is, an
_ensemble_ of reasonings and sophisms, by the aid of which we establish
some harmless truth, theory, or fancy. His system of indictment was
nearly completed, when the deposition of a witness which he had not
examined, suddenly presented itself, with such an aspect as threatened
to overturn all the edifice of his logic. He hesitated for some moments;
but, as we have already seen, M. Desalleux, in his functions