“Gentlemen of the jury, I have finished. In the name of all our families’ dead, whose long line makes up our everliving honour, in the name of our land slowly acquired and laboriously cultivated by succeeding generations, but given up to-day and fully sacrificed to consolidate our honour, I ask you to restore to me my son. Give him back to me, not for pity’s sake, but in justice; not as a favour, but with all your hearts. All his race and I myself will answer to you for his innocence....” He sat down. He had spoken only an hour. When his voice, which had been calm and sonorous, always under control, rising and swelling like the grave notes of a hymn, ceased speaking, there was a prolonged silence in the room for some moments, the solemn and religious silence that one hears in church. People had heard, not the explosion of wrath and bitterness that they had expected as their due from this redoubtable old lawyer in answer to the hateful violence of Mr. Porterieux: not the scandal of a lover’s recriminations against his mistress that they had counted on; but a proud defence that disdained invective, confident in its authoritative, moral force, admirable and moving along its straight and simple lines, like the proportions of those serene and motionless statues that purify desire and stir the spirit. And the name of Mrs. Frasne had not once been uttered. All of a sudden a cry rang out: “Hurrah for the Roquevillards!” It came from Mother Fauchois, and she threw her whole heart into it. The crowd in the court-room had been overborne, dominated and conquered; it broke into long applause. While the presiding judge rapped on his desk to check this demonstration, which nevertheless had put the irritated Mr. Battard to flight, Mr. Vallerois leaned forward once more to Mr. Barré. The latter now asked leave to speak, as Mr. Hamel had declined, excusing himself from availing himself of his right to speak in rebuttal after having neglected to use his right to sum up. “I have heard, like you,” Mr. Barré said in substance, addressing the jurors, “the plea made by Mr. Roquevillard. No, the guilty party is not this young man here. And since the accused has had the generosity not to designate any one, I’ll not myself indicate things any further. I will denounce, however, the too clever machinations of this plaintiff, who disarms our sympathy by having used his private sorrows to build up a fortune. Make haste and bring in a verdict of acquittal for Maurice Roquevillard; restore him to his father, who is an honour to our bar. If the young man has been reprehensible in his private life, he need not nevertheless be retained any longer on this charge of abuse of confidence.” The day was waning, leaving the whole room filled with the evening light. The jury retired to its deliberations, and brought in immediately a unanimous verdict of acquittal. “Bravo!” cried Jeanne Sassenay approvingly, in a loud voice.