A charming place, Nepenthe! He would carry away the pleasantest memories of its beauty and the kindliness of its inhabitants. It was like a terrestrial paradise, so verdant, so remote from all danger. And yet nothing on earth was secure. That volcanic eruption the other day--what a scare it must have given them! What a lucky escape they had, thanks to the Divine intervention of the Patron Saint! Hardly any damage done; no victims worth mentioning. The fertile fields were intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather round the family board. Family life, the sacred hearth! It was the pride, the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and right conduct. Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the parents' teaching and example--nothing! And this poor boy, now threatened with imprisonment, had a mother. He had a mother. Did the Court appreciate the import of those words? Did they realize what it meant to shatter that hallowed bond, to deprive the parent of her offspring's help and consolation--the child of its mother's fostering care? Let them consider the lives of all t hose great men of the past who were known to have had mothers--Themistocles, Dante, Virgil, Peter the Hermit and Madame de Maintenon--why had they achieved distinction in the world? What was the secret of their greatness? A mother's affectionate guidance in youth. They had not been torn, as children, from her loving arms. A good many people were already sobbing. But the orator had noticed that something was wrong. He consulted a small scrap of paper and then continued in the same conversational tones as before.