"Good-night, Monsieur l'Abbe," said Albert. "We will talk of your
business at greater length when the elections are over."
And he took Alfred's arm, after pressing Monsieur de Grancey's hand
with meaning. The priest looked at the ambitious man, whose face at
that moment wore the lofty expression which a general may have when he
hears the first gun fired for a battle. He raised his eyes to heaven,
and left the room, saying to himself, "What a priest he would make!"
Eloquence is not at the Bar. The pleader rarely puts forth the real
powers of his soul; if he did, he would die of it in a few years.
Eloquence is, nowadays, rarely in the pulpit; but it is found on
certain occasions in the Chamber of Deputies, when an ambitious man
stakes all to win all, or, stung by a myriad darts, at a given moment
bursts into speech. But it is still more certainly found in some
privileged beings, at the inevitable hour when their claims must
either triumph or be wrecked, and when they are forced to speak. Thus
at this meeting, Albert Savarus, feeling the necessity of winning
himself some supporters, displayed all the faculties of his soul and
the resources of his intellect. He entered the room well, without
awkwardness or arrogance, without weakness, without cowardice, quite
gravely, and was not dismayed at finding himself among twenty or
thirty men. The news of the meeting and of its determination had
already brought a few docile sheep to follow the bell.
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