g. Very good. Our two chambers communicate by a door; the
Queen will find it walled up." Louis took his royal mantle in earnest,
for he exclaimed, "A King's mantle shall never serve as coverlet to a
harlot." The minister Van Maanen, terrified, sent word of this to the
Emperor. The Emperor fell into a rage, not against Hortense, but against
Louis. Nevertheless Louis held firm; the door was not walled up, but his
Majesty was; and when the Queen came he turned his back upon her. This
did not prevent Napoleon III. from being born.

A suitable number of salvoes of cannon saluted this birth.

Such was the story which, in the summer of 1840, in the house called La
Terrasse, before witnesses, among whom was Ferdinand B----, Marquis de la
L----, a companion during boyhood of the author of this book, was told by
M. Vieillard, an ironical Bonapartist, an arrant sceptic.

Besides Vieillard there was Vaudrey, whom Louis Bonaparte made a General
at the same time as Espinasse. In case of need a Colonel of Conspiracies
can become a General of Ambuscades.

There was Fialin,[14] the corporal who became a Duke.

There was Fleury, who was destined to the glory of travelling by the side
of the Czar on his buttocks.

There was Lacrosse, a Liberal turned Clerical, one of those Conservatives
who push order as far as the embalming, and preservation as far as the
mummy: later on a senator.

There was Larabit, a friend of Lacrosse, as much a domestic and not less
a senator.

There was Canon Coquereau, the "Abbe of La Belle-Poule." The answer is
known which he made to a princess who asked him, "What is the Elysee?" It
appears that one can say to a princess what one cannot say to a woman.

There was Hippolyte Fortoul, of the climbing genus, of the worth of a
Gustave Planche or of some Philarete Chasles, an ill-tempered writer who
had become Minister of the Marine, which caused Beranger to say, "This
Fortoul knows all the spars, including the 'greased pole.'"

There were some Auvergants there. Two. They hated each other. One had
nicknamed the other "the melancholy tinker."

There was Sainte-Beuve, a distinguished but inferior man, having a
pardonable fondness for ugliness. A great critic like Cousin is a great
philosopher.

There was Troplong, who had had Dupin for Procurator, and whom Dupin had
had for President. Dupin, Troplong; the two side faces of the mask placed
upon the brow of the law.

There was Abbatucci; a conscience which