“Théodule, your grandnephew.”
And in a low voice to the lieutenant:—
“Approve of everything.”
And she withdrew.
The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable encounters, stammered with some timidity: “Good day, uncle,”—and made a salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute.
“Ah! so it’s you; that is well, sit down,” said the old gentleman.
That said, he totally forgot the lancer.
Théodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose.
M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets, talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two watches which he wore in his two fobs.
“That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du Panthéon! by my life! urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to squeeze their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that we are making for the abyss. That is what the descamisados have brought us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery! To go and jabber in the open air over the jibes of the National Guard! And with whom are they to meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but returned convicts and released galley-slaves. The Republicans and the galley-slaves,—they form but one nose and one handkerchief. Carnot used to say: ‘Where would you have me go, traitor?’ Fouché replied: ‘Wherever you please, imbecile!’ That’s what the Republicans are like.”