The Monomaniac by Émile Zola

One day, during the second week in March, M. Denizet, the examining-magistrate, had again summoned certain important witnesses in the Grandmorin case, to his chambers at the Rouen Law Courts.

For the last three weeks, this case had been causing enormous sensation. It had set Rouen upside down; it had impassioned Paris; and the opposition newspapers, in their violent campaign against the Empire, had just grasped it as a weapon. The forthcoming general elections, which occupied the public mind in preference to all other political events, added keen excitement to the struggle. In the Chamber there had been some very stormy sittings; one at which the validity of the powers of two members attached to the Emperor's household, had been bitterly disputed; and another that had given rise to a most determined attack on the financial administration of the Prefect of the Seine, coupled with a demand for the election of a Municipal Council.