“Do you hear?” she said to the Duke of Richelieu, who had bowed lowly to his triumphing nephew. “The King will never change, he says.”
“They are terrible words, indeed,” he replied, “but those poor Parliamentists did not notice that in saying he would never change, the King had his eyes on you.”
She was a woman and no politician. She only saw a compliment where Aiguillon perceived the epigram and the threat.
The effect of the royal ultimatum was immediately favorable to the royal cause. But often a heavy blow only stuns and the blood circulates the more purely and richly for the shock.
This was the reflection made by three men in the crowd, as they looked on from the corner. Chance had united them here, and they appeared to watch the impression of the throng.
“This ripens the passions,” observed one of them, an old man with brilliant eyes in a soft and honest face. “A Bed of Justice is a great work.”
“Aye, but you may make a bed and not get Justice to go to sleep on it,” sneered a young man.
“I seem to know you—we have met before?” queried the old man.
“The night of the accident through the fireworks; you are not wrong, M. Rousseau.”
“Oh, you are my fellow-countryman, the young surgeon, Marat?”