The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that provincial tongue which has long constituted the eloquence of the bar, and which was formerly employed by all advocates, at Paris as well as at Romorantin or at Montbrison, and which today, having become classic, is no longer spoken except by the official orators of magistracy, to whom it is suited on account of its grave sonorousness and its majestic stride; a tongue in which a husband is called a consort , and a woman a spouse ; Paris, the centre of art and civilization ; the king, the monarch ; Monseigneur the Bishop, a sainted pontiff ; the district-attorney, the eloquent interpreter of public prosecution ; the arguments, the accents which we have just listened to ; the age of Louis XIV