“Oh! my dear,” cried Rastignac, “here’s the session about to open, and we really must not take these disdainful airs toward the elect of the nation. Besides which, you will get into difficulties with madame, who, I am told, is the protectress of one of these sovereigns of late date.”
“I?” said Madame de l’Estorade, rather surprised, and blushing a little. She had one of those complexions, still fresh and dazzling, which are predisposed to these flushes of color.
“Ah! true,” said Madame de Rastignac; “I had forgotten that artist who cut out the pretty figures for your children the last time I had the pleasure of paying you a visit. I own I was far from thinking then that he would be one of our masters.”
“And yet, ever since then,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, “his election has been talked about; though it must be owned that until now no one thought seriously of it.”
“I did,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, rather eagerly, seizing the occasion to put another star to his reputation for prophecy; “from the first political conversation that I had with him I said—and Monsieur de Ronquerolles is here to bear me out—that I was surprised at the ability and the breadth of aim he manifested.”
“Certainly,” said the personage thus interpellated, “he is not an ordinary fellow; but I do not believe in his future. He is a man who goes by the first impulsion, and, as Monsieur de Talleyrand has wisely remarked, the first impulse is the good impulse.”
“Well, monsieur?” inquired Madame de l’Estorade, ingenuously.
“Well, madame,” replied Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who was vain of his scepticism, “heroism is not of our day; it is heavy baggage, horribly embarrassing, which gets us into mud-holes continually.”
“Nevertheless, I believe that great qualities of heart and mind have some share in the composition of a distinguished man.”
“Qualities of mind? Yes, you are right there, provided always they work in a certain direction. But as for qualities of the heart in political life, what good are they?—to hoist you on stilts with which you can’t walk as well as you can on the ground, and from which you are liable to fall and break your neck at the first push.”