“You are jesting, surely?”
“Perfectly in earnest, I assure you. This is my third week of being quartered here; and not only have I not been invited, but, stranger still, Madame Bonaparte passed and never noticed me; and another, one of her suite, did the same: so you see there can be no accident in the matter.”
“How strange!” said the abbé, leaning his head on his hand. And then, as if speaking to himself, muttered, “But so it is; there is no such tyrant as your parvenu. The caprice of sudden elevation knows no guidance. And you can't even guess at the cause of all this?”
“Not with all my ingenuity could I invent anything like a reason.”
“Well, well; we may find it out yet. These are strange times altogether. Lieutenant. Men's minds are more unsettled than ever they were. The Jacobin begins to feel he has been laboring for nothing; that all he deems the rubbish of a monarchy has been removed, only to build up a greater oppression. The soldier sees his conquests have only made the fortune of one man in the army, and that one not overmindful of his old companions. Many begin to think—and they may have some cause for the notion—that the old family of France knew the interests of the nation best, after all; and certain it is, they were never ungrateful to those who served them. Your countrymen had always their share of favor shown them; you do surprise me when you say you've never been invited.”
“So it is, though; and, worse still, there is evidently some secret reason. Men look at me as if I had done something to stain my character and name.”
“No, no; you mistake all that. This new and patchwork Court does but try to imitate the tone of its leader. When did you see De Beauvais?”
“Not for some months past. Is he in Paris?”
“No; the poor fellow has been ill. He 's in Normandy just now, but I expect him back soon. There is a youth who might be anything he pleased: his family, one of the oldest in the South; his means abundant; his own ability first-rate. But his principles are of that inflexible material that won't bend for mere convenience' sake; he does not like, he does not approve of, the present Government of France.”
“What would he have, then? Does not Bonaparte satisfy the ambition of a Frenchman? Does he wish a greater name than that at the head of his nation?”