“I cannot make head or tail of it,” said Gatien Boirouge, who was the first to break the silence of the party from Sancerre.
“Nor I,” replied Monsieur Gravier.
“And yet it is a novel of the time of the Empire,” said Lousteau.
“By the way in which the brigand is made to speak,” said Monsieur Gravier, “it is evident that the author knew nothing of Italy. Banditti do not allow themselves such graceful conceits.”
Madame Gorju came up to Bianchon, seeing him pensive, and with a glance towards her daughter Mademoiselle Euphemie Gorju, the owner of a fairly good fortune—“What a rhodomontade!” said she. “The prescriptions you write are worth more than all that rubbish.”
The Mayoress had elaborately worked up this speech, which, in her opinion, showed strong judgment.
“Well, madame, we must be lenient, we have but twenty pages out of a thousand,” said Bianchon, looking at Mademoiselle Gorju, whose figure threatened terrible things after the birth of her first child.
“Well, Monsieur de Clagny,” said Lousteau, “we were talking yesterday of the forms of revenge invented by husbands. What do you say to those invented by wives?”
“I say,” replied the Public Prosecutor, “that the romance is not by a Councillor of State, but by a woman. For extravagant inventions the imagination of women far outdoes that of men; witness Frankenstein by Mrs. Shelley, Leone Leoni by George Sand, the works of Anne Radcliffe, and the Nouveau Promethee (New Prometheus) of Camille de Maupin.”
Dinah looked steadily at Monsieur de Clagny, making him feel, by an expression that gave him a chill, that in spite of the illustrious examples he had quoted, she regarded this as a reflection on Paquita la Sevillane.