“I agree with the minister,” said Sallenauve; “extreme innocence and extreme rascality are equally able to defend themselves against seduction.”
Here Monsieur de l’Estorade, seeing, or pretending to see, a signal made to him, looked over his shoulder and said,—
“I’m coming.”
And the two adversaries being thus buckled together, he hastened away as if summoned to some duty as master of the house.
Sallenauve was anxious not to seem disturbed at finding himself alone with the minister. The meeting having come about, he decided to endure it with a good grace, and, taking the first word, he asked if the ministry had prepared, in view of the coming sessions, a large number of bills.
“No, very few,” replied Rastignac. “To tell the truth, we do not expect to be in power very long; we brought about an election because in the general confusion into which the press has thrown public opinion, our constitutional duty was to force that opinion to reconstitute itself; but the fact is, we did not expect the result to be favorable to us, and we are therefore taken somewhat unawares.”
“You are like the peasant,” said Sallenauve, laughing, “who, expecting the end of the world, did not sow his wheat.”
“Well, we don’t look upon our retirement as the end of the world,” said Rastignac, modestly; “there are men to come after us, and many of them well able to govern; only, as we expected to give but few more representations in that transitory abode called ‘power,’ we have not unpacked either our costumes or our scenery. Besides, the coming session, in any case, can only be a business session. The question now is, of course, between the palace, that is, personal influence, and the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. This question will naturally come up when the vote is taken on the secret-service fund. Whenever, in one way or the other, that is settled, and the budget is voted, together with a few bills of secondary interest, Parliament has really completed its task; it will have put an end to a distressing struggle, and the country will know to which of the two parties it can look for the development of its prosperity.”
“And you think,” said Sallenauve, “that in a well-balanced system of government that question is a useful one to raise?”
“Well,” replied Rastignac, “we have not raised it. It is born perhaps of circumstances; a great deal, as I think, from the restlessness of certain ambitions, and also from the tactics of parties.”