In all his life, his eloquence had never produced so striking an effect.

Every sentence, every word, told.

The prisoner's assurance, already shaken, fell little by little, just like the outer coating of a wall when riddled with bullets.
Albert was, as the magistrate perceived, like a man, who, rolling to the bottom of a precipice, sees every branch and every projecture which might retard his fall fail him, and who feels a new and more painful bruise each time his body comes in contact with them.
"And now," concluded the investigating magistrate, "listen to good advice: do not persist in a system of denying, impossible to sustain.
Give in.

Justice, rest assured, is ignorant of nothing which it is important to know.

Believe me; seek to deserve the indulgence of your judges, confess your guilt." M.Daburon did not believe that his prisoner would still persist in asserting his innocence.