Bonaparte's head shot up above the rim of the bath-tub, and he leveled a fiery glance at Lucien.
"You undertake to say! A pretty piece of business!" with an air and tone of withering contempt.
"Yes; and I undertake to say," cried Joseph, in a tone of triumph, "that it will be so. And that is what I told the First Consul before."
"And what did I say?" said the Consul, his tone rising with his wrath, and with his head still above the rim of the bath-tub, looking by turns quickly from one brother to the other, as if not to lose any change in the countenance of either.
"You declared," said Joseph, his voice also rising, "you would get along without the assent of the Chambers; did you not?"
"Exactly," said Bonaparte, concentrated irony in his tone. "That is what I took the liberty to say to Monsieur Joseph, and what I repeat here to Citizen Lucien, begging him to give me his opinion about it, derived from his paternal tenderness for that mighty diplomatic conquest of his, the treaty of San Ildefonso."
Now I thought this a very unkind thrust at Lucien, for I had heard his part in the treaty had been most creditable and that the First Consul had been much pleased with it. I could see that Lucien found it hard to brook, but he struggled for mastery with himself, and spoke still gently:
"My brother, my devotion is deep enough to sacrifice everything for you, except my duty. If I believed, for example, this sale of Louisiana would be fatal to me alone, I would consent to it to prove to you my devotion. But it is too unconstitutional."
Bonaparte broke into his sentence with a fit of rasping, sarcastic laughter, sinking back into the bath-tub almost in a convulsion of demoniacal mirth.
"Ha, ha, ha! You are drawing it fine. 'For example'!" His words struggled out in the intervals of his spasms of laughter. "Ha, ha, ha! 'For example'!"—catching his breath. "'Unconstitutional'! That's droll from you; a good joke—ha, ha!" As his laughter ceased an expression of ironical and contemptuous rage passed over his face.