"Hem! This time, madame, two likings are combined: that for the aristocracy and the aristocrat."
"Do you imagine that she loves Louis de Narbonne on account of his descent?"
(Louis de Narbonne was supposed to be an incestuous son of King Louis XV.)
"It is not on account of any ability, I reckon?"
"But nobody is less well-born than Louis de Narbonne; his father is not even known."
"Only because one dares not look at the sun."
"So you do not believe that De Narbonne is the outcome of the Swedish Embassy, as the Jacobins assert, with Robespierre at the head?"
"Yes; only he comes from the wife's boudoir, not the lord's study. To suppose Lord de Stael has a hand in it, is to suppose he is master in his own house. Goodness, no; this is not an embassador's treachery, but a loving woman's weakness. Nothing but Love, the great, eternal magician, could impel a woman to put the gigantic sword of the revolution in that frivolous rake's hands."
"Do you allude to the demagogue Isnard kissed at the Jacobin Club?"