“They are; but, at the same time, there are great and small.”
“Good! but, in two or three years, I will say to you, ‘There are neither great nor small. All are children of one mother, and all will have their rights before man, as before heaven.’”
“Ha! Is that the sort of schooling they give you in the Queen’s Dragoons, Monsieur Jean Baptiste?”
“Not only in the Queen’s Dragoons, but in all other regiments, old Nimrod.”
My uncle took three glasses from the cupboard, filled two, and half-filled the other for me.
Drouet took up his glass.
“To the nation!” said he.
“What is that word?” inquired my uncle.
“It is a new one, which I hope will yet gain the rights of the middle classes. That youngster there; what are you going to do with him?”
“Make him my successor.”