"It must be for a season yet," answered the other, with loud, rasping voice; "but the day of a rising is at hand, and shows with a laughing face how those whom she will destroy are rushing swiftly upon their own doom."
"What nonsense is that you are talking?" asked the cobbler. "Those who are going to be destroyed by Madame Liberty are working out their own ruin?"
"And yet they are doing it, Master Simon; they are digging their own graves, only they do not see it, and do not know it; for the divinity which means to destroy them has smitten them with blindness. There is this queen, this Austrian woman. Do you not see with your wise eyes how like a busy spider she is weaving her own shroud?"
"Now, that is certainly an error," said Simon; "the queen does not work at all. She lets the people work for her."
"I tell you, man, she does work, she is working at her own shroud, and I think she has got a good bit of it ready. She has nice friends, too, to help her in it, and to draw up the threads for this royal spider, and so get ready what is needed for this shroud. There, for example, is that fine Duke de Coigny. Do you know who that Duke de Coigny is?"
"No, indeed, I know nothing about it; I have nothing to do with the court, and know nothing about the court rabble."
"There you are right, they are a rabble," cried the other, laughing in return. "I know it, for I am so unfortunate as not to be able to say with you that I have nothing to do with the court. I have gone into palaces, and I shall come out again, but I promise you that my exit shall make more stir than my entrance. Now, I will tell you who the Duke de Coigny is. He is one of the three chief paramours of the queen, one of the great favorites of the Austrian sultana."
"Well, now, that is jolly," cried the cobbler; "you are a comical rogue, sir. So the queen has her paramours?"
"Yes. You know that the Duke de Besenval, at the time that the Austrian came as dauphiness to France, said to her: 'These hundred thousand Parisians, madame, who have come out to meet you, are all your lovers.' Now she takes this expression of Besenval in earnest, and wants to make every Parisian a lover of hers. Only wait, only wait, it will be your turn by and by. You will be able to press the hand of this beautiful Austrian tenderly to your lips."
"Well, I will let you know in advance, then," said Simon, savagely, "that I will press it in such right good earnest, that it shall always bear the marks of it. You were speaking just now of the three chief paramours—what are the names of the other two?"