'Why not? Let him imagine I am dead. Let him say to himself, "I am a widower once again; I am free as a bird, I will spread my wings, and seek a distant clime." Pretty bird he'd make, though! You Germans have no neatness, no delicacy and buoyancy of construction. You are great hawks—penguins, who never rise. But we French are ever on tiptoe, ready to soar; we only want a breath of gas in our bones, a few feathers on our backs, and you would find the sky swarm with us, laughing, chattering, wheeling here and there, coquetting, always polite, always graceful, and never flying beyond sight of la belle France.'

'But my father cannot in conscience——'

'Stay! never mention that word in my hearing. There it is, that is the mischief of it. Conscience is the lead that keeps you always in one position. I thought to have died of laughing. I saw in a shop window a range of dolls,—fat things rounded off below, without perceptible legs. You knocked them about, and they rocked to and fro, and always righted in the same position. I rushed into the shop, and I said—"Oblige me, those are German toys, are they not?" "Madame, you are right," was the answer I received. Well, Nicholas! I thought at once of you and your father, leaded with your dreadful dumpy conscience. My faith! why does not this precious conscience keep the corporal from going to Versailles?'

'What do you mean, mother? he is not going there.'

'Yes, he is. He has received orders transferring him there; he has to attend in the palace, as one of the guard. If he is so fond of me, let him refuse. You say he can't,—he is ordered there. Well, there is no help for it, he leaves me. Now let him suppose he is ordered off to Switzerland; there he goes. I will order him off. Right about face, quick, march!'

'Surely, mother, you will not be so heartless?'

'Ah bah! I shall do well enough here. I can't go to Versailles after him, can I? Well, and I won't go to Switzerland with him. That is my mind. I have my business and my pleasure here in Paris; I could not live away from either. Ask a nightingale to visit and admire the beauties of the bottom of the sea! invite a minnow to soar to the stars! expect a rose to throw its roots into the air and thrust its blossoms under the soil! Pshaw! This is just as sensible as asking me to plunge into your lakes, ascend your Alps, and bury myself in your mountain gorges under avalanches and glaciers and Heaven knows what besides.'

'Where is my father now?'

'He is out. He has to remove at once to the Swiss battalion at Rueil, and thence he will be sent with a new company to attend on the royal family and guard the palace. You see the French guard have at Versailles, as here, merged themselves in a national guard, so I fancy the Court prefers to be defended by foreign troops. Here he comes!'