"Stop!" cried the prelate.
"Monsignore?"
"I stopped you short, my son, because T perceive that you are getting beyond the real and the possible. Primo, we have no citizens; we have subjects. Secundo, the conscription is a revolutionary measure, which we will not adopt at any price; it consecrates a principle of equality as much opposed to the ideas of the Government as to the habits of the country. It might possibly give us a very good army, but that army would belong to the nation, not to the Sovereign. We will at once put away, if you please, this dangerous utopia."
"It might gain you some popularity."
"Far from it. Believe me, the subjects of the Holy Father have a deep antipathy to the principle of the conscription. The discontent of La Vendée and Brittany is nothing to that which it would create here."
"People become accustomed to everything, Monsignore. I have met contingents from La Vendée and Brittany singing merrily as they went to join their corps."
"So much the better for them. But let me tell you the only grievance of this country against the French rule is the conscription, which the Emperor had established among us."
"So you negative my proposal of the conscription."
"Absolutely!"
"I must think no more about it?"