“‘You see me in uniform in honor of Monseigneur the Bishop, who has just made his diocesan visit, and whom I have just conducted to the limit of the arrondissement.’
“‘What!’ said I, ‘you have gendarmes for guards, and dance attendance on bishops? There are no more janissaries and Jesuits, I suppose?’ The sub-prefect smiled.
“‘I assure you that my gendarmes are very worthy fellows; and that among the gentlemen who compose our clergy there are some of the very best rank and talent: besides, my wife is niece to one of the vicars-general.’
“‘What have you done with that great Tasso beard that poor Armandine used to love so?’
“‘My wife does not like a beard; and you know that what is permitted to a student is not very becoming to a magistrate.’
“I began to laugh. ‘Harmodius and a magistrate!—how shall I ever couple the two words together? But tell me, in your correspondences, your audiences, your sittings with village mayors and petty councils, how do you manage to remain awake?’
“‘In the commencement,’ said Harmodius, gravely, ‘it WAS very difficult; and, in order to keep my eyes open, I used to stick pins into my legs: now, however, I am used to it; and I’m sure I don’t take more than fifty pinches of snuff at a sitting.’
“‘Ah! apropos of snuff: you are near Spain here, and were always a famous smoker. Give me a cigar,—it will take away the musty odor of these piles of papers.’
“‘Impossible, my dear; I don’t smoke; my wife cannot bear a cigar.’
“His wife! thought I; always his wife: and I remember Juliette, who really grew sick at the smell of a pipe, and Harmodius would smoke, until, at last, the poor thing grew to smoke herself, like a trooper. To compensate, however, as much as possible for the loss of my cigar, Dambergeac drew from his pocket an enormous gold snuff-box, on which figured the self-same head that I had before remarked in plaster, but this time surrounded with a ring of pretty princes and princesses, all nicely painted in miniature. As for the statue of Louis Philippe, that, in the cabinet of an official, is a thing of course; but the snuff-box seemed to indicate a degree of sentimental and personal devotion, such as the old Royalists were only supposed to be guilty of.