There was only one man in the palace as happy as he at that moment, and that was the Nabob. Escorted by his friends, he occupied, filled the main aisle all by himself, talking in a loud tone, gesticulating, so proud that he seemed almost handsome, as if, by dint of gazing long at his bust in artless admiration, he had caught a little of the splendid idealization with which the artist had softened the vulgarity of the type. The head at an elevation of three-fourths, free from the high rolling collar, gave rise to contradictory opinions from the spectators concerning the resemblance; and Jansoulet's name, which had been repeated so many times by the electoral urns, was echoed by the prettiest lips in Paris, by its most influential voices. Any other than the Nabob would have been embarrassed by hearing as he passed the exclamations of these curious bystanders, who were not always in sympathy with him. But the platform and the springboard were congenial to that nature, which was always braver under the fire of staring eyes, like those women who are beautiful and clever only in society, and whom the slightest admiration transfigures and perfects. When he felt that that delirious joy was subsiding, when he thought that he had drained the cup of his proud intoxication, he had only to say to himself: "Deputy! I am a deputy!" and the triumphal cup was brimming full once more. It meant the raising of the embargo from all his property, the awakening from a nightmare of two months' duration, the blast of the mistral sweeping away all vexations, all anxieties, even to the insult at Saint-Romans, heavily as it weighed on his memory. Deputy!