"No doubt, as the king said just now, he is a doctor; when he has to answer those who talk of the Belgian, Italian or Polish nationality, he will say: 'Pardon, messieurs; before busying ourselves with the affairs of other peoples, France has first to cure herself of an internal inflammation.' When they turn their gaze in the direction of la Vendée, and hear the sound of firing and see the smoke of battle, no one will have anything to reply, the king will then only concern himself with people of his own nationality and even the most fiery propagandists will see that we have not taken upon us the responsibility of foreign bloodshed."
The king bit his lips; I had evidently hit home.
"Monsieur Dumas," he said, "politics are a melancholy profession.... Leave it to kings and governors. You are a poet; attend to your poetry."
"Pardon me. I do not follow."
"I merely mean that, being a poet, you see things as a poet." I bowed again.
"Sire," I said to him, "the ancients called their poets Vates."
The king signed with his hand, implying, "Monsieur Dumas, your audience is at an end; I know what I wanted to know from you and you can retire."
I understood the sign, and I did not wait to have it repeated. I went out as far as I could backwards, so as not to shock those ideas of etiquette of which the Duc d'Orléans had tried hard to give me a lesson one day when King Charles X. had come to the famous ball at the Palais-Royal.
I met Oudard on the staircase.
"Have you seen the king?" he asked me.