Old Colonel Giguet arrived on this battle-field at the moment when his sister bethought herself of filling the empty spaces on either side of the fireplace with benches from the antechamber, disregarding the baldness of their velvet covers which had done good service for twenty-four years.
“We can seat seventy persons,” she said to her brother triumphantly.
“God grant that we may have seventy friends!” replied the colonel.
“If, after receiving every night, for twenty-four years, the whole society of Arcis-sur-Aube, a single one of my regular visitors fails us on this occasion—” began the old lady, in a threatening manner.
“Pooh, pooh!” replied the colonel, interrupting his sister, “I’ll name you ten who cannot and ought not to come. First,” he said, beginning to count on his fingers, “Antonin Goulard, sub-prefect, for one; Frederic Marest, procureur-du-roi, there’s two; Monsieur Olivier Vinet, his substitute, three; Monsieur Martener, examining-judge, four; the justice of peace—”
“But I am not so silly,” said the old lady, interrupting her brother in her turn, “as to expect office-holders to come to a meeting the object of which is to give another deputy to the Opposition. For all that, Antonin Goulard, Simon’s comrade and schoolmate, would be very well pleased to see him a deputy because—”
“Come, sister, leave our own business of politics to us men. Where is Simon?”
“He is dressing,” she answered. “He was wise not to breakfast, for he is very nervous. It is queer that, though he is in the habit of speaking in court, he dreads this meeting as if he were certain to meet enemies.”
“Faith! I have often had to face masked batteries, and my soul—I won’t say my body—never quailed; but if I had to stand there,” said the old soldier, pointing to the tea-table, “and face forty bourgeois gaping at me, their eyes fixed on mine, and expecting sonorous and correct phrases, my shirt would be wringing wet before I could get out a word.”
“And yet, my dear father,” said Simon Giguet, entering from the smaller salon, “you really must make that effort for me; for if there is a man in the department of the Aube whose voice is all-powerful it is assuredly you. In 1815—”