“Weeding it?”
“Yes. You must get rid of the Blancs, Rollins, Barbes, and all that canaille.”
“Eh bien! But how?”
“By disfranchising their sans culottes constituency—the blouses.”
“Mon cher vicomte! You are surely jesting?”
“No, mon cher prince. I’m in earnest.”
“Sacré! Such a bill brought before the Assembly would cause the members to be dragged from their seats. Disfranchise the blouse voters! Why, there are two millions of them?”
“All the more reason for your getting rid of them. And it can be done. You think there’s a majority of the deputies who would be in favour of it?”
“I’m sure there is. As you know, we’ve got the Assembly packed with the representatives of the old régime. The fear would be from the outside rabble. A crowd would be certain to gather, if such an act was in contemplation, and you know what a Parisian crowd is, when the question is political?”
“But I’ve thought of a way of scattering your crowd, or rather hindering it from coming together.”