“They are not scoundrels,” replied Count Altamira. “I talk to you about myself in order to give you a vivid impression. Look at the Prince of Araceli. He casts his eyes on his golden fleece every five minutes; he cannot get over the pleasure of seeing that decoration on his breast. In reality the poor man is really an anachronism. The fleece was a signal honour a hundred years ago, but he would have been nowhere near it in those days. But nowadays, so far as people of birth are concerned, you have to be an Araceli to be delighted with it. He had a whole town hanged in order to get it.”
“Is that the price he had to pay?” said Julien anxiously.
“Not exactly,” answered Altamira coldly, “he probably had about thirty rich landed proprietors in his district who had the reputation of being Liberals thrown into the river.”
“What a monster!” pursued Julien.
Mademoiselle de la Mole who was leaning her head forward with keenest interest was so near him that her beautiful hair almost touched his shoulder.
“You are very young,” answered Altamira. “I was telling you that I had a married sister in Provence. She is still pretty, good and gentle; she is an excellent mother, performs all her duties faithfully, is pious but not a bigot.”
“What is he driving at?” thought mademoiselle de la Mole.
“She is happy,” continued the comte Altamira; “she was so in 1815. I was then in hiding at her house on her estate near the Antibes. Well the moment she learnt of marshall Ney’s execution she began to dance.”
“Is it possible?” said Julien, thunderstruck.
“It’s party spirit,” replied Altamira. “There are no longer any real passions in the nineteenth century: that’s why one is so bored in France. People commit acts of the greatest cruelty, but without any feeling of cruelty.”