When M. Bergeret entered the shop, Paillot, the bookseller, with a pencil thrust behind his ear, was collecting his “returns.” He was stacking up the volumes whose yellow covers, after long exposure to the sunlight, had turned brown and become covered with fly-marks. These were the unsaleable copies, which he was sending back to the publishers. M. Bergeret recognised among the “returns” several works that he liked. He felt no chagrin at this, having too much taste to hope to see his favourite authors winning the votes of the crowd.

He sank down, as he was accustomed to do, in the old-book corner, and through mere habit took up the thirty-eighth volume of l’Histoire GÉnÉrale des Voyages. The book, bound in green leather, opened of its own accord at p. 212, and M. Bergeret once more read these fatal lines:

“a passage to the North. ‘It is to this check,’ said he, ‘that we owe the opportunity of being able to visit the Sandwich Isles again…’” And M. Bergeret sank into melancholy.

M. Mazure, the archivist of the department, and M. de Terremondre, president of the Society of Agriculture and ArchÆology, who both had their rush-bottomed chairs in the old-book corner, came in opportunely to join the professor. M. Mazure was a paleographer of great merit. But his manners were not elegant. He had married the servant of the archivist, his predecessor, and appeared in the town in a straw hat with battered crown. He was a radical, and published documents concerning the history of the county town during the Revolution. He enjoyed inveighing against the royalists of the department; but having applied for academic honours without having received them, he began invectives against his political friends, and particularly against M. Worms-Clavelin, the prÉfet.

Being insulting by nature, his professional practice of discovering secrets disposed him to slander and calumny. Nevertheless he was good company, especially at table, where he used to sing drinking songs.

“You know,” said he to M. de Terremondre and M. Bergeret, “that the prÉfet uses the house of Rondonneau junior for assignations with women. He has been caught there. AbbÉ Guitrel also haunts the place. And, appropriately enough, the house is called, in a land-survey of 1783, the House of the Two Satyrs.” “But,” said M. de Terremondre, “there are no women of loose life in the house of Rondonneau junior.”

“They are taken there,” answered Mazure, the archivist.

“Talking of that,” said M. de Terremondre, “I have heard, my dear Monsieur Bergeret, that you have been shocking my old friend Lantaigne, on the Mall, by a cynical confession of your political and social immorality. They say that you know neither law nor curb…”

“They are mistaken,” replied M. Bergeret.

“… that you are indifferent in the matter of government.”

“Not at all! But, to tell the truth, I do not attach any special importance to the form of the State. Changes of government make little change in the condition of individuals. We do not depend on constitutions or on charters, but on instincts and morals. It serves no purpose at all to change the name of public necessities. And it is only the crazy and the ambitious who make revolutions.”

“It is not above ten years ago,” replied M. Mazure, “that I would have risked a broken head for the Republic. To-day I could see her turn a somersault, and only laugh and cross my arms. The old republicans are despised. Favour is only granted to the turncoats. I am not referring to you, Monsieur de Terremondre. But I am disgusted. I have come to think with M. Bergeret. All governments are ungrateful.”

“They are all powerless,” said M. Bergeret; “and I have here in my pocket a little tale which I should very much like to read to you. I have founded it on an anecdote which my father often related to me. It proves that absolute power is powerlessness itself. I should like to have your opinion on this trifle. If you do not disapprove of it, I shall send it to the Revue de Paris.”

M. de Terremondre and M. Mazure drew their chairs up to that of M. Bergeret, who pulled a note-book from his pocket and began to read in a weak, but clear voice:

A DEPUTY MAGISTRATE

In a salon of the Tuileries the ministers had assembled…

“Allow me to listen,” said M. Paillot, the bookseller. “I am waiting for LÉon, who is not back yet. When he is out, he never comes back. I am obliged to tend the shop and serve the customers. But I shall hear at least a part of the reading. I like to improve my mind.”

“Very well, Paillot,” said M. Bergeret, and he resumed:

A DEPUTY MAGISTRATE

In a salon of the Tuileries the ministers had assembled in council, under the presidency of the Emperor. Napoleon III. was silently making marks with a pencil on a plan of an industrial town. His long, sallow face, with its melancholy sweetness, had a strange appearance amid the square heads of the men of affairs and the bronzed faces of the men of toil. He half raised his eyelids, glanced with his gentle, vague look round the oval table, and asked:

“Gentlemen, is there any other matter to be discussed?”

His voice issued from his thick moustaches a little muffled and hollow, and seemed to come from very far off.

At this moment the Keeper of the Seals made a sign to his colleague of the Home Department which the latter did not seem to notice.—At that time the Keeper of the Seals was M. Delarbre, a magistrate in virtue of his birth, who had displayed in his high judicial functions a becoming pliability, abruptly laid aside now and then for the rigidity of a professional dignity that nothing could bend. It was said that, after having become an ultramontane and a member of the Empress’s party, the jansenism of those great lawyers, his ancestors, sometimes bubbled up in his nature. But those who had access to him considered him to be merely punctilious, a trifle fanciful, indifferent to the great questions which his mind did not grasp, and obstinate about the trifles which suited the pettiness of his intriguing character.

The Emperor was preparing to rise, with his two hands on the gilt arms of his chair. Delarbre, seeing that the Home Secretary, his nose in his papers, was avoiding his look, took it upon himself to challenge him.

“Pardon me, my dear colleague, for raising a question which, although it started in your department, none the less concerns mine. But you have yourself declared to me your intention of apprising the Council of the extremely delicate situation in which a magistrate has been placed by the prÉfet of a department in the West.”

The Home Secretary shrugged his broad shoulders slightly and looked at Delarbre with some impatience. He had the air, at once jovial and choleric, which belongs to great demagogues.

“Oh,” said he, “that was gossip, ridiculous tittle-tattle, a rumour which I should be ashamed to bring to the notice of the Emperor, were it not that my colleague, the Minister of Justice, seems to attach an importance to it which, for my part, I have not succeeded in discovering.”

Napoleon began sketching once more. “It has to do with the prÉfet of Loire-InfÉrieure,” continued the minister. “This official is reputed, in his department, to be a gallant squire of dames, and the reputation for gallantry which has become attached to his name, combined with his well-known courtesy and his devotion to the government, has contributed not a little to the popularity which he enjoys in the country. His attentions to Madame MÉreau, the wife of the procureur-gÉnÉral, have been noticed and commented on. I grant that M. PÉlisson, the prÉfet, has given occasion for scandalous gossip in Nantes, and that severe charges have been laid to his account in the bourgeois circles of the county town, especially in the drawing-rooms frequented by the magistracy. Assuredly M. PÉlisson’s attitude towards Madame MÉreau, whose position ought to have protected her from any such equivocal attentions, would be regrettable, if it were continued. But the information I have received enables me to state that Madame MÉreau has not been actually compromised and that no scandal is to be anticipated. A little prudence and circumspection will suffice to prevent this affair having any annoying consequences.”

Having spoken in these terms, the Home Secretary closed his portfolio and leant back in his chair.

The Emperor said nothing.

“Excuse me, my dear colleague!” said the Keeper of the Seals drily, “the wife of the procureur-gÉnÉral of the court of Nantes is the mistress of the prÉfet of Loire-InfÉrieure; this connection, known throughout the whole district, is calculated to injure the prestige of the magistracy. It is important to call the attention of His Majesty to this state of things.”

“Doubtless,” replied the Home Secretary, his gaze turned towards the allegories on the ceiling, “doubtless, such facts are to be regretted; yet one must in no way exaggerate; it is possible that the prÉfet of Loire-InfÉrieure may have been a little imprudent and Madame MÉreau a little giddy, but…”

The minister wafted the rest of his ideas towards the mythological figures which floated across the painted sky. There was a moment’s silence, during which one could hear the impudent chirping of the sparrows perched on the trees in the garden and on the eaves of the chÂteau.

M. Delarbre bit his thin lips and pulled his austere but coquettish moustaches. He replied:

“Excuse my persistence; the secret reports which I have received leave no doubt as to the nature of the relationship between M. PÉlisson and Madame MÉreau. These relations were already established two years ago. In fact, in the month of September 18— the prÉfet of Loire-InfÉrieure got the procureur-gÉnÉral an invitation to hunt with the Comte de Morainville, deputy for the third division in the department, and during the magistrate’s absence he entered Madame MÉreau’s room. He got in by way of the kitchen-garden. The next day the gardener saw traces that the wall had been scaled and informed the police. Inquiry was made; they even arrested a tramp, who, not being able to prove his innocence, endured several months of precautionary imprisonment. He had, it is true, a very bad record and no special points of interest about him. Still to this day the procureur-gÉnÉral persists, supported by a very small proportion of the public, in believing him to be guilty of house-breaking. The position, I repeat, is rendered by this fact no less annoying and prejudicial to the prestige of the magistracy.”

The Home Secretary poured over the discussion, according to his wont, certain massive phrases calculated to close and suppress it by their weight. He held, said he, his prÉfets in the palm of his hand; he would be able to lead M. PÉlisson easily to a just appreciation of things, without taking any drastic measure against an intelligent and zealous official, who had succeeded in his department, and who was valuable “from the point of view of the electoral position.” No one could say that he was more interested than the Home Secretary in maintaining a good understanding between the officials of the departments and the judicial authority. Still the Emperor kept that dreamy look in which he was usually wrapped when silent. He was evidently thinking of past events, for he suddenly said: “Poor M. PÉlisson! I knew his father. He was called Anacharsis PÉlisson. He was the son of a republican of 1792; himself a republican, he used to write in the opposition papers during the July administration. At the time of my captivity in the fortress of Ham, he addressed a friendly letter to me. You cannot imagine the joy which the slightest token of sympathy gives a prisoner. After that we went on our separate paths. We never saw one another again. He is dead.”

The Emperor lit a cigarette and remained wrapped in his dream for a moment. Then rising:

“Gentlemen, I will not detain you.”

With the awkward gait of a great winged bird when it walks, he returned to his private apartments; and the ministers went out, one after the other, through the long suite of rooms, beneath the solemn gaze of the ushers. The marshal who was the Minister of War held out his cigar-case to the Keeper of the Seals.

“Monsieur Delarbre, shall we take a little walk outside? I want to stretch my legs.”

Whilst they were both walking down the Rue de Rivoli, by the railing that borders the Terrasse des Feuillants: “Speaking of cigars,” said the marshal, “I only like very dry one-sou cigars. The others seem like sweetmeats to me. Don’t you know…”

He cut short his thought, then:

“This PÉlisson that you were talking about just now in the Council, isn’t he a little dried up, swarthy man, who was sous-prÉfet at Saint-DiÉ five years ago?”

Delarbre replied that PÉlisson had indeed been sous-prÉfet in the Vosges.

“So I said to myself: I knew PÉlisson. And I remember Madame PÉlisson very well. I sat next to her at dinner at Saint-DiÉ, when I went there for the unveiling of a monument. Don’t you know…”

“What kind of woman is she?” asked Delarbre.

“Tiny, swarthy, thin. A deceptive thinness. In the morning, in a high-necked dress, she looked a mere wisp. At table in the evening, in a low-necked dress with flowers in her bosom, very charming.”

“But morally, marshal?”

“Morally.… I am not an imbecile, am I, now? Well! I have never understood anything about a woman’s morals. All that I can tell you is that Madame PÉlisson passed for a sentimentalist. They said she had a warm heart for handsome men.”

“She gave you a hint to that effect, my dear marshal?”

“Not the least in the world. She said to me at dessert, ‘I dote on eloquence. A noble speech carries me away.’ I could not apply that remark to myself. It is true that I had that morning delivered an address. But I had got my aide-de-camp, a short-sighted artillery officer, to write it out for me. He had written so small that I could not read it.… Don’t you know?…”

They had reached the Place VendÔme. Delarbre held out his little withered hand to the marshal, and stole under the archway of the Ministry.

---

The following week, at the breaking up of the Council, when the ministers were already withdrawing, the Emperor laid his hand on the shoulder of the Keeper of the Seals.

“My dear Monsieur Delarbre,” said he to him, “I have heard by chance—in my position, one never learns anything save by chance—that there is a deputy magistrate’s post vacant at the Nantes bar. I beg that you will consider for that post a very deserving young doctor of law, who has written a remarkable treatise on Trade Unions. His name is Chanot, and he is the nephew of Madame Ramel. He is to beg an audience of you this very day. Should you propose him to me for it, I shall sign his nomination with pleasure.”

The Emperor had pronounced the name of his foster-sister tenderly, for he had never lost his affection for her, although, a republican of republicans, she repelled his advances, refused, poor widow as she was, the master’s offers, and raged openly in her garret against the coup d’État. But yielding at last, after fifteen years, to the persistent kindness of Napoleon III., she had come to beg, as earnest of reconciliation, a favour from the prince—not for herself, but for her nephew young Chanot, a doctor of law, and, according to his professors, an honour to the Schools. Even now it was an austere favour that Madame Ramel demanded of her foster-brother; admission to the open court for young Chanot could scarcely be considered an act of partiality. But Madame Ramel was keenly anxious that her nephew should be sent to Loire-InfÉrieure, where his relatives lived. This fact recurred to Napoleon’s mind, and he impressed it on the Minister of Justice.

“It is very important,” said he, “that my candidate should be nominated at Nantes, for that is his native place and where his parents live. That is an important consideration for a young man whose means are small and who likes family life.”

“Chanot… hard-working, meritorious, and with small means…” answered the minister.

He added that he would use his best endeavours to act in accordance with the desire expressed by His Majesty. His only fear was lest the procureur-gÉnÉral should have already submitted to him a list of proposed nominees, among whom, naturally, the name Chanot would not occur. This procureur-gÉnÉral was, indeed, M. MÉreau, concerning whom there had been a discussion in the preceding Council. The Keeper of the Seals was particularly anxious to act very handsomely towards him. But he would strain every nerve to bring this affair to an issue that conformed with the intentions expressed by His Majesty.

He bowed and took his leave. It was his reception day. As soon as he had entered his study, he asked his secretary, Labarthe, whether there were many people in the ante-room. There were two presidents of courts, a councillor of the Appeal Court, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Nicomedia, a crowd of judges, barristers, and priests. The minister asked if there was any one there called Chanot. Labarthe searched in the silver salver, and discovered, among the pile of cards, that of Chanot, doctor of law, prizeman of the Faculty of Law, Paris. The minister ordered him to be called first, merely requesting that he should be conducted by the back passages, in order not to offend the magistrates and clergy.

The minister seated himself at his table and murmured quite to himself:

“‘A sentimentalist,’ said the marshal, ‘with a warm heart for handsome men who speak well.’…” The usher introduced into the study a huge, tall young man, stooping, spectacled, and with a pointed skull. Every part of his uncouth frame expressed at once the timidity of the recluse and the boldness of the thinker.

The Keeper of the Seals examined him from head to foot and saw that he had the cheeks of a child and no shoulders. He signed to him to sit down. The suitor, having perched himself at the edge of the chair, shut his eyes and began to pour forth a flood of words.

“Monsieur le Ministre, I come to beg from your noble patronage the privilege of admission to the magistracy. Possibly Your Excellence may consider that the reports I have gained in the various examinations which I have undergone, and a prize which has been awarded to me for a work on Trade Unions, are sufficient qualifications, and that the nephew of Madame Ramel, foster-sister of the Emperor, is not altogether unworthy…”

The Keeper of the Seals stopped him with a wave of his little yellow hand.

“Doubtless, Monsieur Chanot, doubtless an august patronage, which would never have been mistakenly bestowed on an unworthy recipient, has been secured for you. I know it, the Emperor takes much interest in you. You desire a chair as judge-advocate, Monsieur Chanot?” “Your Excellence,” replied Chanot, “would put the finishing touch to my wishes by nominating me deputy magistrate at Nantes, where my family live.”

Delarbre fixed his leaden eyes on Chanot and said drily:

“There is no vacancy at the bar of Nantes.”

“Excuse me, Your Excellency, I thought…”

The minister rose.

“There is none there.”

And whilst Chanot was making clumsily for the door and looking for an exit in the white panels as he made his bow, the Keeper of the Seals said to him, with a persuasive air and almost in a confidential tone:

“Trust me, Monsieur Chanot, and dissuade your aunt from making any new solicitations which, far from being of any profit to you, will only do you harm. Rest assured that the Emperor takes an interest in you, and rely on me.”

As soon as the door was shut the minister called his secretary.

“Labarthe, bring me your candidate.”

---

At eight o’clock in the evening Labarthe entered a house in the Rue Jacob, mounted the staircase as far as the attics, and called from the landing: “Are you ready, Lespardat?”

The door of a little garret opened. Inside on a shelf there were several law-books and tattered novels; on the bed a black velvet mask with a fall of lace, a bunch of withered violets, and some fencing foils. On the wall a bad portrait of Mirabeau, a copper-plate engraving. In the middle of the room a big bronzed fellow was brandishing dumb-bells. He had frizzled hair, a low forehead, hazel eyes full of laughter and sweetness, a nose that quivered like the nostrils of a horse, and in his pleasantly gaping mouth strong white teeth.

“I was waiting for you,” said he.

Labarthe begged him to dress himself. He was hungry. What time would they get their dinner?

Lespardat, having laid his dumb-bells on the floor, pulled off his jersey, and showed the herculean nape that carried his round head on his broad shoulders.

“He looks at least twenty-six,” thought Labarthe.

As soon as Lespardat had put on his coat, the thin cloth of which allowed one to follow the powerful, easy play of the muscles, Labarthe pushed him outside.

“We shall be at Magny’s in three minutes. I have the minister’s brougham.”

As they had matters to discuss, they asked for a private room at the restaurant. After the sole and the prÉ-salÉ, Labarthe attacked his subject bluntly:

“Listen to me carefully, Lespardat. You will see my chief to-morrow, your nomination will be proposed by the procureur-gÉnÉral of Nantes on Thursday, and on Monday submitted for the signature of the Emperor. It is arranged that it shall be given to him unexpectedly, at the moment when he will be busy with Alfred Maury in fixing the site of Alesia. When he is studying the topography of the Gauls in the time of CÆsar, the Emperor signs everything they want him to. But understand clearly what is expected from you. You must win the favour of Madame la prÉfÈte. You must win from her the ultimate favour. It is only by this consummation that the magistracy will be avenged.”

Lespardat swallowed and listened, pleased and smiling in his ingenuous self-conceit.

“But,” said he, “what notion has budded in Delarbre’s head? I thought he was a puritan.”

Labarthe, raising his knife, stopped him.

“First of all, my friend, I beg that you will not compromise my chief, who must remain ignorant of all that’s going on here. But since you have brought in Delarbre’s name, I will tell you that his puritanism is a jansenist puritanism. He is a great-nephew of Deacon PÂris. His maternal great-uncle was that M. CarrÉ de Montgeron who defended the fanatics of Saint-MÉdard’s Cloister[K] before the Parliament. Now the jansenists love to practise their austerities in nooks and crannies; they have a taste for diplomatic and canonical blackguardism. It is the effect of their perfect purity. And then they read the Bible. The Old Testament is full of stories of the same kind as yours, my dear Lespardat.”

Lespardat was not listening. He was floating in a sea of naÏve delight. He was asking himself: “What will father say? What will mother say?” thinking of his parents, grocers of large ambitions and little wealth at Agen. And he vaguely associated his budding fortune with the glory of Mirabeau, his favourite hero. Since his college days he had dreamt of a destiny rich with women and feats of oratory.

Labarthe recalled his young friend’s attention to himself.

“You know, monsieur le substitut, you are not irremovable. If after a reasonable interval you have not made yourself very agreeable to Madame PÉlisson—I mean completely agreeable—you fall into disgrace.” “But,” asked Lespardat frankly, “how much time do you give me to make myself excessively pleasing to Madame PÉlisson?”

“Until the vacation,” answered the minister’s secretary gravely. “We give you, in addition, all sorts of facilities, secret missions, furloughs, &c. Everything except money. Above all, we are an honest administration. People don’t believe it. But later on they will find that we were no jobbers. Take Delarbre: he has clean hands. Besides, the Home Office, which is on the husband’s side, controls the Secret Service Money. Do not count on anything save your two thousand four hundred francs of salary and your handsome face to captivate Madame PÉlisson.”

“Is she pretty, this prÉfÈte of mine?” demanded Lespardat.

He asked this question carelessly, without exaggerating the importance of it, placidly, as behoves a very young man who finds all women beautiful. By way of reply, Labarthe threw on the table the photograph of a thin lady in a round hat, with a double bandeau falling on her brown neck.

“Here,” said he, “is the portrait of Madame PÉlisson. It was ordered by the Cabinet from the Prefecture of Police, and they sent it on after they had stamped it with a warranty stamp, as you see.”

Lespardat seized it eagerly with his square fingers.

“She is handsome,” said he. “Have you a plan?” asked Labarthe. “A methodical scheme of operations.”

“No,” answered Lespardat simply.

Labarthe, who was keen-witted, protested that it was, however, necessary to foresee, to arrange, not to allow oneself to be taken unawares by any contingencies.

“You are certain,” added he, “to be invited to the balls at the prefecture, and you will, of course, dance with Madame PÉlisson. Do you know how to dance? Show me how you dance.”

Lespardat rose, and, clasping his chair in his arms, took one turn of a waltz with the deportment of a graceful bear.

Labarthe watched him very gravely through his eyeglass.

“You are heavy, awkward, without that irresistible suppleness which…”

“Mirabeau danced badly,” said Lespardat.

“After all,” said Labarthe, “perhaps it is only that the chair does not inspire you.”

When they were both once more on the damp pavement of the narrow Rue Contrescarpe, they met several girls who were coming and going between the Carrefour Buci and the wine-shops of the Rue Dauphine. As one of these, a thick-set, heavy girl, in a dingy black dress, was passing sadly by under a street lamp with slack gait, Lespardat seized her roughly by the waist, lifted her, and made her take with him two turns of a waltz across the greasy pavement and into the gutter, before she had any idea what was happening.

Recovering from her astonishment, she shrieked the foulest insults at her cavalier, who carried her away with irresistible verve. He himself supplied the orchestra, in a baritone voice, as warm and seductive as military music, and whirled so madly with the girl that, all bespattered with mud and water from the street, they collided with the shafts of prowling cabs and felt on their neck the breath of the horses. After a few turns, she murmured in the young man’s ear, her head sunk on his breast and all her anger gone:

“After all, you are a pretty fellow, you are. You ought to make them happy, didn’t you?—those girls at Bullier’s.”

“That’s enough, my friend,” cried Labarthe. “Don’t go and get run in. My word, you will avenge the magistracy!”

---

In the golden light of a September day four months later, the Minister of Justice and Religion, passing with his secretary under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli, recognised M. Lespardat, the deputy magistrate of Nantes, at the very moment when the young man was hurrying into the HÔtel du Louvre. “Labarthe,” asked the minister, “did you know that your protÉgÉ was in Paris? Has he then nothing to keep him in Nantes? It seems to me that it is now some time since you have given me any confidential information about him. His start interested me, but I don’t know yet whether he has quite lived up to the high opinion you formed of him.”

Labarthe took up the cudgels for the substitut; he reminded the minister that Lespardat was on regular leave; that at Nantes he had immediately gained the confidence of his chiefs at the bar, and that he had at the same time won the good graces of the prÉfet.

“M. PÉlisson,” added he, “cannot get on without him. It is Lespardat who organises the concerts at the prefecture.”

Then the minister and his secretary continued their walk towards the Rue de la Paix, along the arcades, stopping here and there before the windows of the photograph shops.

“There are too many nude figures exposed in these shop-fronts,” said the minister. “It would be better to take away their license from these shops. Strangers judge us by appearances, and such spectacles as these are calculated to injure the good name of the country and the government.”

Suddenly, at the corner of the Rue de l’Échelle, Labarthe told his chief to look at a veiled woman who was coming towards them with a rapid step. But Delarbre, glancing at her for a moment, considered her very ordinary, far too slender, and not at all elegant.

“She is clumsily shod,” said he; “she is from the provinces.”

When she had passed them:

“Your Excellency is quite right,” said Labarthe. “That is Madame PÉlisson.”

At this name the minister, much interested, turned round eagerly. With a vague feeling of his own dignity, he dared not follow her. But he showed his curiosity in his look.

Lebarthe spurred it on.

“I’ll wager, monsieur le ministre, that she won’t go very far.”

They both hastened their steps, and saw Madame PÉlisson follow the arcades, skirt the Place du Palais-Royal, and then, throwing uneasy glances to left and right, disappear into the HÔtel du Louvre.

At that the minister began to laugh from the depths of his throat. His little leaden eyes lighted up. And he muttered between his teeth the words which his secretary guessed rather than heard:

“The magistracy is avenged.”

---

On the same day the Emperor, then in residence at Fontainebleau, was smoking cigarettes in the library of the palace. He was leaning motionless, with the air of a melancholy sea-bird, against the case in which is kept the Monaldeschi coat of mail. Viollet-le-Duc and MÉrimÉe, both his intimate friends, stood by his side.

He asked:

“Why, Monsieur MÉrimÉe, do you like the works of BrantÔme?”

“Sire,” replied MÉrimÉe, “in them I recognise the French nation, with her good and bad qualities. She is never worse than when she is without a leader to show her a noble aim.”

“Really,” said the Emperor, “does one find that in BrantÔme?”

“One also finds in him,” answered MÉrimÉe, “the influence of women in the affairs of state.”

At that moment Madame Ramel entered the gallery. Napoleon had given orders that she should be allowed to come to him whenever she presented herself. At the sight of his foster-sister he showed as much delight as his expressionless, sorrowful face was capable of displaying.

“My dear Madame Ramel,” asked he, “how is your nephew getting on at Nantes? Is he satisfied?”

“But, sire,” said Madame Ramel, “he was not sent there. Another was nominated in his place.”

“That’s strange,” murmured His Majesty thoughtfully. Then, placing his hand on the academician’s shoulder:

“My dear Monsieur MÉrimÉe, I am supposed to rule the fate of France, of Europe, and of the world. And I cannot get a nomination for a substitut of the sixth class, at a salary of two thousand four hundred francs.”