A flame glared from the eyes of the consul and played over the face of Fouche, but the latter appeared not to notice it, for he cast down his eyes again, and his manner was easy and unconstrained.
"You now speak a word which is not becoming," said Bonaparte, calmly. "I am the first servant of the republic, and in a republic there are no crowns."
"Not citizens' crowns, general?" asked Fouche, with a faint smile. "I mean, that this noblest of crowns can everywhere be acceptable, and no head has merited such a crown more than the noble Consul Bonaparte, who has made the republic of France a worthy rival of its sister in North America."
Bonaparte threw his head proudly back. "I am not ambitious of the honor," he said, "of being Washington of France."
"Yet you are he, general," replied Fouche, with a smile. "Only the Washington of France does not live in the White House which a republic has built, but in the Tuileries, which he has received as the heir of the French kings. General, as the worthiest, the greatest, the most powerful, and the most signally called, you have come into the possession of the inheritance of the kings of France. For to this inheritance belongs also the crown of France. Why do you refuse this, while accepting all the rest?"
"And what if I show you that I do not want it?" asked Bonaparte. "And what if I should tell you that I do not feel myself worthy to assume the whole, undivided inheritance of the Bourbons? Would you be foolish and senseless enough to believe such an idle tale?"
"Consul, you have already done so many things that are wonderful, and have brought so many magic charms to reality, that I no longer hold any thing to be impossible, as soon as you have laid your hand upon it."
"And therefore you hold a concealed magician's wand, which you propose to draw forth at some decisive moment, and present to me, as the cross is presented to Beelzebub in the tale?"
"I do not understand you, consul," replied Fouche, with the most innocent air in the world.
"Well, then, I will make myself intelligible. The magician's wand, which you are keeping concealed, is called Louis XVII. Oh! do not shake your cunning head; do not deny with your smooth lips, which once uttered the death-sentence of Louis XVI., and which now are used to teach a fool and a pretender that he is the son of the murdered king. Truly, it is ridiculous. The regicide wants to atone for his offence by hatching a fable, and making a king out of a manikin."