"But there was a child of that marriage."
"Yes, Ronnay de Maurel, a loyal patriot ... a fine Republican...."
"Shall we say a fine Bonapartist, my good M. Dubois?" said the Minister of Police significantly. "I like and trust Ronnay de Maurel. I would not like to see him tarred with the worn-out brush of the past decade."
"Well ... Republican or Bonapartist—'tis all the same—what? I was one of those who voted for the proclamation and Ronnay de Maurel was another. First Consul for life, with all the splendours of past monarchies, or frankly Emperor of the French, there was not much to choose. You were an ardent Republican, too, at one time—eh, M. le Ministre?"
"Quite so—quite so. But we were not speaking of mine unworthy self, but of Mme. la Marquise de Mortain and of her son Ronnay de Maurel."
"Son, indeed!" retorted Dubois, with a gruff laugh. "M. de Maurel has been taught to execrate his mother. He was only four years old when his father died, but an uncle brought him up—old Gaston de Maurel—a magnificent patriot if ever there was one. Nothing of the whilom aristo about him ... eats peas with his knife and wears sabots and a blouse ... he voted for the death of the King ... just as you did—eh, M. le Ministre?"
"Just as I did, my dear friend—and I am proud of it. Gaston de Maurel and I sat in the Assembly of the Convention as representatives of the people of France, and in the name of the people we decreed that the tyrant Louis Capet, known to the world as Louis XVI., King of France, should die upon the scaffold as a traitor to the nation which he had set out to govern. Gaston de Maurel may eat peas with a knife, but he rendered the Republic and the Directorate infinite services in quelling the so-called Royalist risings in his own province of Normandy."
"Now he is old. Some say that he has not many months to live. Ronnay de Maurel dwells with him in his Château de la Vieuville, near Villemor. They both live like peasants in a couple of rooms in the sumptuous château. The old man is a miser: he has accumulated immense wealth in these past twenty years. Ronnay de Maurel, on the other hand, owns the sumptuous demesnes of La Frontenay, which he inherited from his father, together with the foundries, where he employs five thousand men and manufactures war material for the Grand Army. He is already one of the richest men in France—and he is his uncle's sole heir; when old Gaston dies the de Maurel riches will be uncountable...."
"And he, too, eats peas with his knife," concluded Fouché, with a sardonic smile.
"And hardly knows how to read and write," assented the préfet of police. "A succession of tutors at La Vieuville testify to the rough temper and the obstinate savagery of this descendant of aristos."