"How have I touched your constitution?" he cried. "Answer!"
"I know well," said Lucien, still trying to control himself, "you have not done so; but you know well that to alienate any possession of the republic without the consent of the Chambers is unconstitutional."
That last word seemed to drive the Consul beside himself. Once more his head shot above the top of the bath-tub, and with blazing eyes he shook his fist at Lucien.
"Clear out!" he shouted. "'Constitution'! 'Unconstitutional'! 'Republic'! Great words—fine phrases! Do you think you are still at the Club of St. Maximin? We are past that, you had better believe! Parbleu! You phrase it nobly. 'Unconstitutional'! It becomes you well, Sir Knight of the Constitution, to talk that way to me. You hadn't the same respect for the Chambers on the eighteenth Brumaire."
Lucien, roused at last, broke in, in a tone as high as Bonaparte's:
"You well know, my dear brother, that your entry into the Five Hundred had no warmer opponent than I. No! I was not your accomplice, but the repairer of the evil which you had done to yourself!—and that at my own peril, and with some generosity on my part, because we did not then agree. Not to boast, I may add that no one in Europe, more than I, has disapproved the sacrilege against the national representation."
Bonaparte's eyes blazed like diamonds.
"Go on—go on!" he thundered. "That's quite too fine a thing to cut short, Sir Orator of the Clubs! But at the same time take note of this: that I shall do just as I please; that I detest, without fearing, your friends the Jacobins!—not one of whom shall remain in France if, as I hope, things continue to remain in my hands; and that, in fine, I snap my fingers at you and your 'national representation.'"
"On my side," shouted Lucien, "I do not snap my fingers at you, Citizen Consul, but I well know what I think about you."
"What do you think about me, Citizen Lucien? Parbleu! I am curious to know. Out with it!"