"The most of the burghers look with repugnance upon a new Restoration; but for the commercial bourgeoisie, the Restoration, if it will only assure peace, means a renewal of business," replied Lebrenn.
"Always the same, these bourgeois," muttered Napoleon; "peace, business. Their mouths can shape no other words. Among them never the shadow of national sentiment! And what is the attitude of the people, the workingmen of your quarter?"
"Some are astonished at your inaction, Sire; others are more severe; they arraign your general policies."
"Have I not always had my hands tied by the Chamber of Deputies, by babblers, lawyers, and rainbow-chasers! They think only of orating, of overwhelming me with their reproaches, instead of aiding me to save the country. They balanced opinions like the Greeks in the lower world, while here the barbarians were at the gates of Paris. They are the wretches!"
"I was at St. Cloud in the days of Brumaire, Sire, when with your grenadiers you drove the Representatives of the people from their seats. Now, when the safety of the fatherland is at stake, why do you not employ the same measures against the deputies who prevent your saving France?"
"The Five Hundred were Terrorists, malcontents, seditionists, assassins," said Napoleon quickly; "they merited death."
"I arrived shortly after the session of the Five Hundred. You ran no danger. No poniard was raised against you. The Five Hundred were no malcontents; they defended the law and the Constitution."
"You are a Jacobin."
"Yes, Sire; ever since '93; and I believe that to-day, as in '93, the Republic single-handed could cope with coalized Europe—especially had the Republic your sword!"
Napoleon's face changed, and he smiled with that inscrutability mingled with grace and good-fellowship which gave him, more than anything else, such influence over the simple-minded. "Ah, ah, Sir Jacobin," he said, "well for you it is that I find out so late what you are. You have no doubt some influence in your quarter; I would have sent you to rot in Vincennes, my new prison of state, at the bottom of a pit!"