"You love your brother, do you not?"
"Love? The feeling is of adoration."
"Then you are ready to transmit good advice to him, coming from a friend?"
"Then, speak, speak!"
"When his Feuillant Ministry falls, which will not take long, let him take a ministry with all the members wearing this red cap, though it so alarms the queen." And profoundly bowing, he went out.
[CHAPTER III.]
POWERFUL, PERHAPS; HAPPY, NEVER.
The Narbonne Ministry lasted three months. A speech of Vergniaud blasted it. On the news that the Empress of Russia had made a treaty with Turkey, and Austria and Prussia had signed an alliance, offensive and defensive, he sprung into the rostrum and cried:
"I see the palace from here where this counter-revolution is scheming those plots which aim to deliver us to Austria. The day has come when you must put an end to so much audacity, and confound the plotters. Out of that palace have issued panic and terror in olden times, in the name of despotism—let them now rush into it in the name of the law!"
Dread and terror did indeed enter the Tuileries, whence De Narbonne, wafted thither by a breath of love, was expelled by a gust of storm. This downfall occurred at the beginning of March, 1792.