“Very well,” said I, “I will take it—for the sake of the autographs; but it is understood that I keep it in my pocket.”
“Yes, keep it,” said Armand Marrast laughingly, “so that you can say that one day you were pair and the next day maire.”
Lamartine took me aside into the recess of a window.
“It is not a mairie I would like you to have, but a ministry. Victor Hugo, the Republic’s Minister of Instruction! Come now, since you say that you are Republican!”
“Republican—in principle. But in fact, I was yesterday peer of France, I was yesterday for the Regency, and, believing the Republic to be premature, I should be also for the Regency to-day.”
“Nations are above dynasties,” went on Lamartine. “I, too, have been a Royalist.”
“Yes, but you were a deputy, elected by the nation; I was a peer, appointed by the King.”
“The King in choosing you, under the terms of the Constitution, in one of the categories from which the Upper House was recruited, but honoured the peerage and also honoured himself.”
“I thank you,” said I, “but you look at things from the outside; I consider them in my conscience.”
We were interrupted by the noise of a prolonged fusillade which broke out suddenly on the square. A bullet smashed a window-pane above our heads.