This turn of the case was so sudden, that the poor Frenchmen, who understood only a word here and there, were unprepared for it, and began among themselves an eager jabbering, which at length awakened the faculties of the old man. He caught a few words, and then seemed, for the first time, to listen understandingly to what he heard. But whatever emotion he felt was either repressed by self-command, or buried in the depth of conscious abasement. He soon rose, and left the room, followed by the little party that had surrounded him. The next morning I happened to be passing through the bar-room of the house I lodged in, and as I entered the door, I heard the bar-keeper say, "Here he is." I looked up. There was only one other person present, and his back was to me. Turning at the moment, I saw that it was old Charlot. I immediately approached him, accosting him with marked courtesy. He seemed not to hear me, but tottered toward me, looking up in my face with a dim lack-lustre eye, as if endeavoring to distinguish who I was. As I accosted him, extending my hand, he laid hold of it and drew himself forward, still gazing on me with the same fixed inquiring look. "_C'est Monsieur le Juge?_" asked he, in a subdued and tremulous voice. At the moment his eye found the answer to his question, and, before I could speak, he had fallen on his knees, and my hand was pressed to his lips, and bathed in tears which rained from his wintry eyes. I was inexpressibly shocked, and more humbled in his humiliation than at any other moment of my life. I raised him with difficulty, and in a voice choked by tears, he tried to speak. I knew what he would say, and replied to his meaning. "You have no cause to thank me," said I. "Your son had done nothing for which he could lawfully be punished; his acquittal was inevitable, and he has merely received sheer justice at my hands." While I spoke, he recovered himself enough to speak. "Ah! Monsieur," said he, "that is true. But in the case of a poor wretch, hated and despised by all, who neither has, nor deserves to have a friend on earth, is not mere justice something to be thankful for? Bad as he is, he is my only son, and I must have leave to thank you."