The two young gentlemen looked at each other, exchanged a smile, and the Viscount said to the Marquis:
"What is that?"
"A madman."
"No, dear; a mad dog."
"Nothing else."[[6]]
"Very well, gentlemen," cried the Colonel. "Speak English; you're fit for it!"
He changed his compartment at the next station, and fell in with a lot of young painters. He called them disciples of Zeuxis, and asked them about Gérard, Gros, and David. These gentlemen found the sport novel, and recommended him to go and see Talma in the new tragedy of Arnault.
The fortifications of Paris dazzled him very much, and scandalized him a little.
"I don't like this," said he to his companions. "The true rampart of a capital is the courage of a great people. This piling bastions around Paris, is saying to the enemy that it is possible to conquer France."
The train at last stopped at the Mazas station. The Colonel, who had no baggage, marched out pompously, with his hands in his pockets, to look for the hôtel de Nantes. As he had spent three months in Paris about the year 1810, he considered himself acquainted with the city, and for that reason he did not fail to lose himself as soon as he got there. But in the various quarters which he traversed at hazard, he admired the great changes which had been wrought during his absence. Fougas' taste was for having streets very long, very wide, and bordered with very large houses all alike; he could not fail to notice that the Parisian style was rapidly approaching his ideal. It was not yet absolute perfection, but progress was manifest.