When he again saw Paris, the Empire was at its crest. The city he had left a wilderness had flowered with the riotous luxuriance of the tropics. The Tuileries Gardens were again noisy with the laughter of promenaders, thronging to a review in the Place du Carrousel. Wherever he went his eye caught the flash of martial splendor and the sheen of sabers.
A little sadly he spent the days in the strange Babylon, seeking some trace of the great Revolution that once had rolled through the city, of the thundering mobs, the fervid cafés, the tricoteuses, and the creak of the roiling tumbrels.
The Cabaret of the Prêtre Pendu, its gibbet banished, had become the Cabaret of a Hundred and One Victories. The greeting of "citoyen" no longer resounded in the street. Of all the familiar faces in the Rue Maugout, not one confronted him. La Mère Corniche had been replaced by another concierge, bent and wrinkled after the manner of concierges, as though her life had been passed at her post.
Among the counts and barons, marshals and princes, of the Empire, galloping in glory, shouting frantically "Vive l'Empereur!" Dossonville recognized with bewilderment figures of Jacobins and Girondins, once worshipers of the sacred Republic. He sought out the Maison Talaru; lackeys were lounging before the door and a stream of carriages rolling through the restored porte-cochère. Once, hearing the rumor of a great execution for the afternoon, with a revival of interest he asked a passer-by:
"And the executioner, what do you call him?"
"Sanson."
"Charles Sanson?"
"His son."
Recalling the prophecy of the father, indifferent servitor to republic or kingdom, he returned pensively to the boulevards, where, to rid himself of black memories, he selected among the pomp and the glitter a fashionable café, and installed himself.