"Well, it is only meet, I suppose, that I should receive my share of the blows," said Marrast. "I'm sure I'm not very delicate or very ceremonious in bestowing them. Besides, every one of my predecessors has endured the same--Carrel, Thomas, Bastide; while poor Rouen, the proprietor, would have been ruined, indeed, a dozen times with fines, but for his enormous profits. Why, this old office has been a perfect butt for Ministers to fire at--it has received a dozen fusillades, at least; but it stands yet, and, strange as may have been the scenes it has witnessed, it will witness yet other and stranger ones, and we shall all be witnesses thereof, and actors in them, too, or greatly do I err." "So be it, with all our hearts!" was the general shout. "Apropos of State prosecutions against 'Le National,'" said Louis Blanc, "that was a most exciting time when Rouen was brought by Thiers before the Court of Peers, for a libel on that most august and erudite body." "Aye! and a most, liberal, honest and honorable conclave--the thrice-sodden and most solemn knaves and mules!" cried Rollin. "Rouen at the bar demanded Armand Carrel for his defence," continued Louis Blanc. "To refuse was impossible, but a bitter pill must it have been to Thiers and Mignet to consent. They must have foreseen what came. Both, now in the Ministry, only four years before both had been in 'Le National'--Thiers as the colleague of Carrel, and Mignet as a collaborateur. The files of the journal were produced, and, lo! there stood paragraphs proven to have emanated from the pens of the prosecutors far more libelous and venomous on the august peers than anything Rouen had published. You all remember the scene that ensued and won't forget it soon." "No; nor shall we soon forget that noble passage in Armand Carrel's defence," said Flocon, "in which he evoked the shade of Marshal Ney, and from the wild excitement that followed, one would suppose that it had really risen in the hall, bleeding and ghastly, and pointing to its wounds, like the ghost of Banquo, to blast his hoary, jeweled and noble assassin, who, seated on those very seats, had sentenced him to an infamous doom. Carrel was instantly stopped, but General Excelmens rose in his seat and pronounced the charge true. It was then reiterated with tremendous applause from the galleries. How Carrel escaped punishment for contempt is not known. Rouen was convicted of libel on the peers, of course; his sentence was a fine of ten thousand francs and imprisonment for two years." "But of what words did this famous libel actually consist?" asked Ledru Rollin. "Louis can tell you better than I," said Flocon.