"Nonsense!"
"Think, M. Gerald. Don't you recollect how he conducted himself on the day of his marriage with Marie Louise?—the scoundrel!"
Madame Barbançon evidently thought it entirely superfluous to mention the object of her execration by name.
"Come, Mother Barbançon, you had better give us our coffee now," interposed the commander. "It is nearly six o'clock."
"Well, monsieur, that wretch whom you admire so much, on the day of his marriage with Marie Louise, behaved more cruelly than any tiger to that darling little King of Rome, who, clasping his tiny hands, pleaded in his fresh, sweet voice: 'Papa Emperor, do not desert poor Mamma Josephine.'"
"Oh, yes, yes; I remember it very well," replied Gerald, with wonderful sang-froid. "You are speaking of the King of Rome, Josephine's son."
"Certainly, M. Gerald; there were no other children. But, after all, that is nothing in comparison to what the wretch had the audacity to do to the Holy Father, on the very steps of the altar at Notre-Dame."
"What was it he did? I have forgotten."
"It seems," began Madame Barbançon, sententiously, "it seems that at coronations the Pope always takes the crown and places it on the head of the monarch he is crowning. You can imagine how much this must have angered your Bû-û-onaparte, who was already in a huff because he had had to kiss the Pope's toe in the middle of the Carrousel, before those swaggering guards of his. But he kissed it, the scoundrel! He had to. If he hadn't, the petit homme rouge, who was against Roustan, and for the pope, would have wrung his neck that very night."
"The Pope's?" asked Gerald.