While General D'Hubert, as ill at ease as if one of his own little weaknesses had been exposed, presented his request as shortly as possible, the minister went on feeling the fit of his collar, settling the lappels before the glass or buckling his back in his efforts to behold the set of the gold-embroidered coat skirts behind. His still face, his attentive eyes, could not have expressed a more complete interest in those matters if he had been alone.
“Exclude from the operations of the Special Commission a certain Feraud, Gabriel Florian, General of Brigade of the promotion of 1814?” he repeated in a slightly wondering tone and then turned away from the glass. “Why exclude him precisely?”
“I am surprised that your Excellency, so competent in the valuation of men of his time, should have thought it worth while to have that name put down on the list.”
“A rabid Bonapartist.”
“So is every grenadier and every trooper of the army, as your Excellency well knows. And the individuality of General Feraud can have no more weight than that of any casual grenadier. He is a man of no mental grasp, of no capacity whatever. It is inconceivable that he should ever have any influence.”
“He has a well-hung tongue though,” interjected Fouché.
“Noisy, I admit, but not dangerous.”
“I will not dispute with you. I know next to nothing of him. Hardly his name in fact.”
“And yet your Excellency had the presidency of the commission charged by the king to point out those who were to be tried,” said General D'Hubert with an emphasis which did not miss the minister's ear.
“Yes, general,” he said, walking away into the dark part of the vast room and throwing himself into a high-backed armchair whose overshadowed depth swallowed him up, all but the gleam of gold embroideries on the coat and the pallid patch of the face. “Yes, general. Take that chair there.”