“This grows serious,” muttered Gilbert.
“He comes here for he gets an audience. The Jacobin is a young minotaur: suckling a calf, he will devour a nation in a while. I promised to show you an instrument for lopping off heads, did I not? Well, Robespierre will give it more work than all those here.”
“Really, you are funereal, count,” said Gilbert; “if your Caesar does not compensate for your Brutus, I may forget what I came here for.”
“You see my future Emperor yonder, talking with the tragic actor Talma, and with another whom he does not know but who will have a great influence over him. Keep this befriender’s name in mind—Barras, and recall it one of these days.”
“I do not know how right you are, but you choose your typical characters well,” said Gilbert; “this Caesar of yours has the brow to wear a crown and his eyes—but I cannot catch the expression——“
“Because his sight is diverted inwards—such eyes study the future, doctor.”
“What is he saying to Barras?”
“That he would have held the Bastile if he were defending it.”
“He is not a patriot, then?”
“Such as he are nothing before they are all in all.”