“Are you for the insurgents?”
“I am, grandfather, for the hundred thousand wretched men, to whom, perhaps imprudently, they promised to give work, and whom, suddenly, without pity, they wish to deprive of it.”
“But they are assassins!”
“Whom have they assassinated?”
“They are thieves!”
“From whom have they stolen?”
“They terrify the country.”
“Oh! yes, they make them out bugbears. They say they are madmen, in order to kill them; perhaps, finally, they will, indeed, make them terrifying, grandfather.”
Blondeau and grandmother looked at each other bewildered. Neither the one nor the other breathed a word.
“It is time that Prince Louis should occupy himself with it,” replied grandfather, “or else such ideas as yours, Juliette, will drive us all crazy.”