"So changed, is she?" asked Moltke, with interest.
"So changed is she, in spite of the aid of cosmetics, that as I looked at her I was minded to exclaim with the Prophet Ezekiel: Devourer of men ... thou shalt devour men no more!"
The speaker added:
"Unless vicariously, for the De Bayard has a daughter—not destitute of charms, if there be truth in the description given me by her mother, when the woman offered, for a consideration, to sell the girl to me!"
"Prut!" said Moltke, reddening angrily and frowning. "Decency demands that such vileness be kept hid!"
Said the Chancellor, shrugging indifferently:
"Decency and such women as Max Valverden's ex-mistress have long ceased to be on nodding terms. To do Madame justice, she flew at higher game than a mere Prussian Minister. Her idea was to influence a future Emperor, in the person of Badinguet's heir."
Moltke wrinkled up his transparent, arched nostrils, as though an unpleasant odor had afflicted them:
"Pfui!—what beastliness! what abomination! And the boy but fifteen, and childish for his age!"
"And cleanly of habit and thought," added Bismarck, "considering his paternity, and the sort of people who habitually surround him." He turned slightly in his saddle as carbine-shots rang out, followed by oaths, shouts, and in the distance behind them muscular blows: "The gendarmery of the Württembergers are carrying out your orders in a general battue. It should be enforced as an iron rule never to be infringed or departed from, that not only those soldiers, reduced to the level of non-combatants—who attempt to revenge the misfortunes of their Army by acts of violence—but those who witness such acts are to be instantly shot. More, the rule should extend to private persons: I would without mercy shoot or hang all those who do not treat as sacredly inviolate the persons of their conquerors!"