I succeeded in forcing my way through the crowd. I saw a number of grotesque faces, which would not have been out of place in the _Charivari's_ caricatures. Most of the men had retained beneath their gala dress the vulgur or stupid air which the finest coat cannot conceal. They were all very hot against poor Balloquet, who was as red as a cherry and gesticulating in the midst of them like one possessed. A stout man of some fifty years, whose eyes looked as if they were made of glass, they were so expressionless and so protruding, held him by the arm and kept repeating: "You don't get off like this, _bigre_! You either belong here or you don't, that's all! Proofs! proofs! I want proofs!" A tall, fair-haired young man, with a weak, stupid face, and hair brushed flat over his forehead almost to his eyebrows, seemed to be threatening Balloquet, as he said: "And what did you do to my wife? tell me that! Did you or didn't you? Pétronille ain't capable of lying about it. She told me you pinched her! That's a pretty way to do--pinch the bride, when you don't belong in the party! If you'd been invited to the wedding--but that wouldn't be any excuse." "I was dancing, monsieur le marié; my hand may have gone astray. If I did pinch her anywhere, I thought it was part of the figure, and----" "Oh! that's a good one! that don't seem reasonable!" "But, monsieur, you don't understand." "You don't get off like that, _bigre_!" cried the fat man with the glassy eyes; "proofs! proofs! proofs!" At that moment, to add to the uproar, a corpulent dame of at least sixty years of age, with a flat nose, smeared with snuff, her face encircled by a flaxen false front, the curls of which, artistically grouped in terraces, made her look as if she wore whiskers, and overladen with flowers, ribbons, lace, and false jewelry, appeared in the midst of the men, crying in a shrill voice: "I don't want Pamphile to fight! I forbid him to fight! What's it all about? You shan't fight, Pamphile--I'd sooner fight myself, in my son's place. O my son, I'm your mother, or I ain't your mother! Monsieur's an intruder, a villain, a blackguard. Throw him out of doors! Call the watch!" "No, madame, I am not a villain," retorted Balloquet, glaring savagely at the old woman, who was bedizened like a circus horse; "and I'll prove it." "Go back to the ballroom, Madame Girie; this is no place for you; we don't need a woman's help to settle this business." "I tell you, I don't want my son to fight!--Come, Pamphile, come back with me; don't get mixed up in this row." "Oh! do let me alone, mamma! Go back with the other ladies."