The Agathist and Kallikagathist parties were practically won. There remained still the most difficult task. The Marquis was perfectly aware of the King's antipathy to matrimony, and was fully convinced that there was still a great chance of failure, unless Turbo's support could be gained. To achieve this he felt was a task of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, and one worthy of his skill as a politician. There was clearly but one way in which it could be done. To approach the Chancellor directly was out of the question. Pressure must be put on him through his party.
With a light heart, which confidence in his abilities can alone give a man, the Marquis set about his task, little imagining the extraordinary result his ingenious manœuvres were to have.
CHAPTER XII. A DECISIVE ACTION.
"But Cupid had him so in snare,
That this poor beggar must prepare
A salve to cure him of his care."
The activity of M. de Tricotrin soon began to make itself felt. There was something so delightfully cynical about the political maxim upon which he was working, that most of the prominent Kallists, whom he sounded, embraced his idea with enthusiasm. The result was a marked and sudden acrimony in the conduct of the campaign.
The situation was entirely new, and was discussed with all the fire and recklessness which is the attribute of new situations everywhere. Before, the question had always lain between the claims of the ladies whom the respective parties supported; now it was between the claims of the respective parties upon a lady whom they all supported. There was something particularly invigorating in the freshness of the political atmosphere.