"Grasp the present and sap the future."
"How stupid they must be in this country to be lured away by ideas."
"No, it is because they have too much brains that they are led by ideas. And then, I have a more powerful help than all the philosophers—the fact that monarchy has lasted sixteen hundred years in France, and the French are tired of it."
"Hence, they are going to overturn the throne, and you are backing them with all your forces! You fool! What good is the upsetting of this monarchy going to do you?"
"It will bring me nothing, at the best, but it will be happiness for others."
"Come, come, I am in a good humor
to-day, and can listen to your nonsense. Explain to me how you will obtain the general weal and what it consists of."
"A ministry is in power which is the last rampart defending the monarchy; it is a cabinet, brave, industrious and intelligent, which might sustain this wornout and staggering monarchy for yet twenty years. My aids will overturn it."
"Your philosophers?"
"Oh, no, for they are in favor of the ministry, for its head is a philosopher too."