And he smiled to himself. He was no fool, but he did not despise social distinctions, and it struck him as piquant that a man who had been imprisoned as a Communard should be made an officer of the Legion of Honour.
“I must go,” said Lacrisse. “I’ve got to prepare the speech for the banquet of the Grandes-Écuries next Sunday.”
“Oh,” sighed the Baronne, “I shouldn’t trouble to do that. It’s not necessary, you extemporize so wonderfully.”
“Besides, my dear fellow,” said Jacques de Cadde, “it’s not a difficult matter to address electors.”
“Not difficult exactly,” said the chosen candidate, “but delicate. Our enemies complain that we have no programme. That is not true, we have a programme, but——”
“Pheasant shooting, that’s the programme, messieurs,” said Jambe-d’Argent.
“But the elector,” continued Joseph Lacrisse, “is of a more complex nature than one would at first suppose. For instance, I’ve been elected to the Grandes-Écuries by the Monarchists, of course, and by the Bonapartists, and also by the—what shall I call them?—by the Republicans who are sick of the Republic but who still remain Republicans. That is a state of mind not infrequently met with in Paris among the small tradespeople. Thus the pork-butcher who presides over my Committee shouts in my face: ‘I’ve done with the Republic of the Republicans. If I could, I’d blow it up, even if I had to blow up with it; but for your Republic, Monsieur Lacrisse, I would lay down my life for it.’ Doubtless there are points on which we all agree. For instance: ‘Rally round the flag.’ ‘No attacks on the Army!’ ‘Down with the traitors in the pay of the foreigner who work to the undoing of our national defence!’ There we are on common ground.”
“Then there is also anti-Semitism,” said Henri Léon.
“Anti-Semitism,” replied Joseph Lacrisse, “is very popular in the Grandes-Écuries because there are so many rich Jews in the ward who are on our side.”
“And the anti-masonic campaign!” cried Jacques de Cadde, who was religious.