The other grumbled:
“Well, them, show him to me!”
Patissot shrugged his shoulders.
“Every one can see him; he's not shut up in a closet!”
Suddenly the fat man grew angry.
“Excuse me, monsieur, he cannot be seen. I have personally tried more than a hundred times, monsieur. I have posted myself near the Elysee; he did not come out. A passer-by informed me that he was playing billiards in the cafe opposite; I went to the cafe opposite; he was not there. I had been promised that he would go to Melun for the convention; I went to Melun, I did not see him. At last I became weary. I did not even see Monsieur Gambetta, and I do not know a single deputy.”
He was, growing excited:
“A government, monsieur, is made to be seen; that's what it's there for, and for nothing else. One must be able to know that on such and such a day at such an hour the government will pass through such and such a street. Then one goes there and is satisfied.”
Patissot, now calm, was enjoying his arguments.
“It is true,” he said, “that it is agreeable to know the people by whom one is governed.”