It was ten o'clock in the morning of the 20th day of March, of the year 1815. Monsieur Desmarais and his brother-in-law, Monsieur Hubert, were awaiting in a chamber of the Tuileries an audience which they had requested with the Duke of Blacas, minister to Louis XVIII, and his most intimate favorite. They had anticipated the hour of the interview, in order to arrive among the first; for great was the throng of solicitants which sought Monsieur Blacas, whose recommendation was all-powerful with the King. Desmarais and Hubert were dressed in the costume of peers of the realm of France. The former, first senator under the Consulate, then under the Empire, had been besides created a Count by Napoleon. Thus, turned royalist, just as he had been Bonapartist (and, to retrace his political career, Thermidorean, Terrorist, Jacobin, and first of all Constitutional), Count Desmarais owed to his recent royalist devotion the fact that he had been included in the list of senators who were made peers of France since the Bourbon return. He was now in his sixty-ninth year; his careworn, bitter features began to show the weakening hand of age. Hubert, on the contrary, seemed lively and brisk as ever. He had become the possessor of an enormous fortune, thanks to his purveyorship under the Directorate, while he was a member of the Council of Ancients. He had curried no favors at the hand of the Empire, whose absolutism conflicted with his political principles; his ideal government had always been a constitutional King, subordinated to an oligarchy of bourgeois. Hubert had been one of a batch of large proprietors whom Louis XVIII had in one day admitted to the Chamber of Peers; but he had not been long in alienating himself from the government of the Restoration, which was piling fault upon fault; he accordingly attached himself to the Orleanist faction.
While awaiting their audience with Minister Blacas, the two were engaged in a political discussion. Soon there entered Fouché, in tow of an usher. "You will inform his Excellency that the Duke of Otranto begs an audience with him," said Fouché to the usher. The usher bowed and disappeared into the ante-room, while the new Duke exclaimed:
"What, is this you, Citizen Brutus Desmarais? And pray, what are you soliciting here? An order for the debut at the Opera of that dancing girl you are protecting?"
"That devil of a Fouché knows everything! You would think he was still Minister of Police," interjected Hubert.
"The cask will always smell of the herring, my dear. I saw this morning two of my old agents, who continue to make me their little confidences."
"Prefect of police, chief of spies! A pretty function, and highly honorable!" sneered Hubert.
"Take care, take care, Citizen Hubert," cautioned Fouché. "I have my eye on the Orleanist conspiracy, in which you have taken it upon yourself to play a role!"
"Your spies are robbing you. You are very ill informed," retorted the banker.
"Why try to trifle with me? Everybody conspires under the open heavens these days. These Bourbons are imbeciles, and their Prefect of Police, Monsieur André, is a ninny! We play all around their legs."
"How can you dare to hold such language in the very palace of our beloved sovereigns?" protested Count Desmarais.