"You see," continued the father, again taking his son's arm, and pressing it tightly under his own; "you would be a fool if you didn't listen to me. Is it agreed, eh? Will you bring me the hundred thousand francs to-morrow?"
"You know very well that I no longer go to your house," replied Maxime, compressing his lips.
"Pooh! A lot of bosh! It's time there was an end to all that."
And while they took a few steps in silence, just at the moment when Renée, feeling as though she would swoon, hid her head in the padding of the brougham, so as not to be seen, a growing buzz swept along the line of vehicles. The pedestrians on the footways halted, and turned round with gaping mouths, watching something that approached. There was a louder rumble of wheels, the equipages respectfully drew aside, and two postilions appeared, clad in green, with round caps, on which golden tassels jolted with their cords spread out. Leaning slightly forward, they hastened on at the trot of their tall bay horses. Behind them they left an empty space; and, then, in this empty space, the Emperor appeared.
He occupied alone the back seat of a landau. Dressed in black, with his frock-coat buttoned up to his chin, he wore, slightly on one side, a very tall hat, the silk of which glistened. In front of him, on the other seat, two gentlemen, dressed with that correct elegance which was favourably looked upon at the Tuileries, remained grave, with their hands on their knees, and the silent air of two wedding guests promenaded amid the curiosity of a crowd.
Renée found the Emperor aged. His mouth was parted more languidly under his thick waxed moustaches. His eyelids had grown heavy to the point that they half covered his dim eyes, the yellow greyness of which had become yet more cloudy. And his nose alone still looked like a dry bone set in his vague face.
Meantime, while the ladies in the carriages smiled discreetly, the people on foot pointed the sovereign out to one another. A fat man declared that the Emperor was the gentleman who turned his back to the coachman on the left side. Some hands were raised to salute. But Saccard, who had taken off his hat, even before the postilions had passed, waited till the imperial carriage was exactly in front of him, and then he cried out in his thick Provençal voice:
"Long live the Emperor!"
The Emperor, surprised, turned, recognised the enthusiast, no doubt, and returned the bow smiling. And everything then disappeared in the sunlight, the equipages closed up, and Renée could only perceive, above the manes of the horses, and between the backs of the footmen, the postilions caps jolting with their golden tassels.
She remained for a moment with her eyes wide open, full of this apparition, which reminded her of another hour of her life. It seemed to her as if the Emperor, by mingling with the line of carriages, had set the last necessary ray therein, and given a meaning to this triumphal march. Now, it was a glory. All these wheels, all these decorated men, all these women languidly stretched out, disappeared amid the flash and the rumble of the imperial landau. This sensation became so acute and so painful that the young woman experienced an imperious need of escaping from this triumph, from Saccard's cry, which was still ringing in her ears, from the sight of the father and the son slowly walking along, and chatting with their arms linked. She reflected, with her hands on her breast, as if burnt by an internal fire: and it was with a sudden hope of relief and salutary coolness that she leant forward, and said to the coachman: