"A bas, Toutou!" he said, softly stroking it, and took a pinch of snuff, regarding the General with a curiously patient expression.
"I know you have done nothing of the sort!" Ratoneau repeated.
"And how, may I ask, does the matter interest you?"
The Prefect spoke slowly and gently; yet something in his manner irritated the General. He made an impatient movement and rattled his sword.
"It does interest me," he said. "How can you disobey an order from the Emperor?"
"As to that, my dear colleague, I am responsible. You know the view I take of that order. I am not alone. Several of my brother Prefects agree with me. It is impolitic, and worse, offensive. The Emperor is reasonable, and does not expect a blind obedience which would really do harm to the Empire."
"Do not make too sure of that, Monsieur le Préfet."
"If the old provincial families are to be brought round en masse to the Empire, it must be done by diplomacy, not by a tyrannical domestic legislation."
"At that rate, Monsieur le Préfet, the work will take a hundred years. They laugh at your diplomacy, these infernal old families. Propose a soldier as a husband for one of their daughters, and you will see."
"I have not done so," the Prefect said very drily, and the glance that shot from under his quiet eyelids might have made a thin-skinned person uncomfortable.