“This is nothing of the kind,” interrupted General D’Hubert. He laughed a little sardonically. “Not at all so simple,” he added. “Nor yet half so reasonable,” he finished, inaudibly, between his teeth, and ground them with rage.
After this sound nothing troubled the silence for a long time, till the Chevalier asked, without animation: “What is he—this Feraud?”
“Lieutenant of hussars, too—I mean, he’s a general. A Gascon. Son of a blacksmith, I believe.”
“There! I thought so. That Bonaparte had a special predilection for the canaille. I don’t mean this for you, D’Hubert. You are one of us, though you have served this usurper, who . . .”
“Let’s leave him out of this,” broke in General D’Hubert.
The Chevalier shrugged his peaked shoulders. “Feraud of sorts. Offspring of a blacksmith and some village troll. See what comes of mixing yourself up with that sort of people.”
“You have made shoes yourself, Chevalier.”
“Yes. But I am not the son of a shoemaker. Neither are you, Monsieur D’Hubert. You and I have something that your Bonaparte’s princes, dukes, and marshals have not, because there’s no power on earth that could give it to them,” retorted the emigre, with the rising animation of a man who has got hold of a hopeful argument. “Those people don’t exist—all these Ferauds. Feraud! What is Feraud? A va-nu-pieds disguised into a general by a Corsican adventurer masquerading as an emperor. There is no earthly reason for a D’Hubert to s’encanailler by a duel with a person of that sort. You can make your excuses to him perfectly well. And if the manant takes into his head to decline them, you may simply refuse to meet him.”
“You say I may do that?”
“I do. With the clearest conscience.”