The cafe de Lyon, in vogue among the National Guard of the quartier, was but a few yards off, and the brothers turned towards it arm in arm. “Who is the friend?” asked Charles; “I don’t remember to have seen him with thee before.”
“He belongs to the medical craft—a good patriot and a kind man—attends the poor gratuitously. Yes, Charles, these are strange times; what dost thou think will come of them?”
They had now entered the cafe; and Charles had ordered the punch, and seated himself at a vacant table before he replied. “What will come of these times? I will tell thee. National deliverance and regeneration through the ascendency of the National Guard.”
“Eh? I don’t take,” said Armand, bewildered.
“Probably not,” answered Charles, with an air of compassionate conceit; “thou art a dreamer, but I am a politician.” He tapped his forehead significantly. “At this custom-house, ideas are examined before they are passed.”
Armand gazed at his brother wistfully, and with a defence he rarely manifested towards any one who disputed his own claims to superior intelligence. Charles was a few years older than Monnier; he was of large build; he had shaggy lowering eyebrows, a long obstinate upper lip, the face of a man who was accustomed to lay down the law. Inordinate self-esteem often gives that character to a physiognomy otherwise commonplace. Charles passed for a deep thinker in his own set, which was a very different set from Armand’s—not among workmen but small shopkeepers. He had risen in life to a grade beyond Armand’s; he had always looked to the main chance, married the widow of a hosier and glover much older than himself, and in her right was a very respectable tradesman, comfortably well off; a Liberal, of course, but a Liberal bourgeois, equally against those above him and those below. Needless to add that he had no sympathy with his brother’s socialistic opinions. Still he loved that brother as well as he could love any one except himself. And Armand, who was very affectionate, and with whom family ties were very strong, returned that love with ample interest; and though so fiercely at war with the class to which Charles belonged, was secretly proud of having a brother who was of that class. So in England I have known the most violent antagonist of the landed aristocracy—himself a cobbler—who interrupts a discourse on the crimes of the aristocracy by saying, “Though I myself descend from a county family.”
In an evil day Charles Monnier, enrolled in the National Guard, had received promotion in that patriotic corps. From that date he began to neglect his shop, to criticise military matters, and to think that if merit had fair play he should be a Cincinnatus or a Washington, he had not decided which.
“Yes,” resumed Charles, ladling out the punch, “thou hast wit enough to perceive that our generals are imbeciles or traitors; that gredin Bonaparte has sold the army for ten millions of francs to Bismarck, and I have no doubt that Wimpffen has his share of the bargain. McMahon was wounded conveniently, and has his own terms for it. The regular army is nowhere. Thou wilt see—thou wilt see—they will not stop the march of the Prussians. Trochu will be obliged to come to the National Guard. Then we shall say, ‘General, give us our terms, and go to sleep.’
“I shall be summoned to the council of war. I have my plan. I explain it—‘tis accepted—it succeeds. I am placed in supreme command—the Prussians are chased back to their sour-krout. And I—well—I don’t like to boast, but thou’lt see—thou’lt see—what will happen.”
“And thy plan, Charles—thou hast formed it already?”