“We might ask this gentleman, who has a _nerudite_ air, to explain it to us,” he went on, indicating the historian. “But it is better not to repeat it, especially as there’s not a vestige of truth in the suggestion. I am not so ambitious as my cousin Mirepoix, who claims that she can trace the descent of her family before Christ to the Tribe of Levi, and I will undertake to prove that there has never been a drop of Jewish blood in our family. Still there is no good in our shutting our eyes to the fact, you may be sure that my dear nephew’s highly original views are liable to make a considerable stir at Landerneau. Especially as Fezensac is ill just now, and Duras will be running the election; you know how he likes to make nuisances,” concluded the Duke, who had never succeeded in learning the exact meaning of certain phrases, and supposed “making nuisances” to mean “making difficulties”. Bloch tried to pin M. de Norpois down on Colonel Picquart. “There can be no two opinions;” replied M. de Norpois, “his evidence had to be taken. I am well aware that, by maintaining this attitude, I have drawn screams of protest from more than one of my colleagues, but to my mind the Government were bound to let the Colonel speak. One can’t dance lightly out of a blind alley like that, or if one does there’s always the risk of falling into a ditch. As for the officer himself, his statement gave one, at the first hearing, a most excellent impression. When one saw him, looking so well in that smart Chasseur uniform, come into court and relate in a perfectly simple and frank tone what he had seen and what he had deduced, and say: ‘On my honor as a soldier’” (here M. de Norpois’s voice shook with a faint patriotic throb) “‘such is my conviction,’ it is impossible to deny that the impression he made was profound.” “There; he is a Dreyfusard, there’s not the least doubt of it,” thought Bloch. “But where he entirely forfeited all the sympathy that he had managed to attract was when he was confronted with the registrar, Gribelin. When one heard that old public servant, a man who had only one answer to make,” (here M. de Norpois began to accentuate his words with the energy of his sincere convictions) “when one listened to him, when one saw him look his superior officer in the face, not afraid to hold his head up to him, and say to him in a tone that admitted of no response: ‘Colonel, sir, you know very well that I have never told a lie, you know that at this moment, as always, I am speaking the truth,’ the wind changed; M. Picquart might move heaven and earth at the subsequent hearings; he made a complete fiasco.”