er, were now occasions of actual collision, wherein the proud soldier
was not always the victor. If the newspapers were strong on one side,
the language of society was less measured on the other. The whole tone
of conversation caught its temper from the times; and 'the bourgeois'
was ridiculed and laughed at unceasingly. The witty talker sought no
other theme; the courtly epigrammatist selected no other subject; and
even royalty itself was made to laugh at the stage exhibitions of those
whose loyalty had once, at least, been the bulwark of the monarchy.

In the spacious apartment already mentioned, and at a small table before
an open window, sat a party of three, over their wine. One was a tall,
spare, dark-complexioned man, with something Spanish in his look, the
Duc de Bourguignon, a captain in the Garde; the second was a handsome
but over-conceited-looking youth, of about twenty-two or three, the
Marquis de Maurepas. The third was Gerald, or as he was then and there
called, Le Chevalier de Fitzgerald. Though the two latter were simple
soldiers, all their equipment was as costly as that of the officer
at their side. As little was there any difference in their manner of
addressing him. Maurepas, indeed, seemed rather disposed to take the
lead in conversation, and assumed a sort of authority in all he said, to
which the Duke gave the kind of assent usually accorded to the 'talkers
by privilege.' The young Marquis had all the easy flippancy of a
practised narrator, and talked like one who rarely fell upon an
unwilling audience.

'It needs but this, Duke,' said he, after a very energetic burst of
eloquence; 'it needs but this, and our corps will be like a regiment of
the line.'

'_Parbleu!_' said the Duke, as he stroked his chin with the puzzled
air of a man who saw a difficulty, but could not imagine any means of
escape.

'I should like to know what your father or mine would have said to such
pretension,' resumed the Marquis. 'You remember what the great monarch
said to Colonna, when he asked a place for his son?--"You must ask
Honore if he has a vacancy in the kitchen!" And right, too. Are we to be
all mixed up together! Are the employments of the State to be filled by
men whose fathers were lackeys! Is France going to reject the traditions
that have guided her for centuries?'

'To what is all this apropos, Gaston!' asked Fitzgerald calmly.

'Haven't you heard that M. Lescour has made interest with the king to
ha