mn silence, then:

"I am going now, Madame, to confer with divers notable persons of the
political and religious worlds who reside at Neuilly. The Marquise de
Rieu wishes me to be a candidate, in her country, for a senatorial seat
which has become vacant by the death of an old man, who was, they say,
a general during his illusory life. I shall consult with priests,
women and children--oh, eternal wisdom!--of the Bineau Boulevard. The
constituency whose suffrages I shall attempt to obtain inhabits an
undulated and wooded land wherein willows frame the fields. And it is
not a rare thing to find in the hollow of one of these old willows the
skeleton of a Chouan pressing his gun against his breast and holding his
beads in his fleshless fingers. I shall have my programme posted on the
bark of oaks. I shall say 'Peace to presbyteries! Let the day come when
bishops, holding in their hands the wooden crook, shall make themselves
similar to the poorest servant of the poorest parish! It was the bishops
who crucified Jesus Christ. Their names were Anne and Caiph. And they
still retain these names before the Son of God. While they were nailing
Him to the cross, I was the good thief hanged by His side.'"

He lifted his stick and pointed toward Neuilly:

"Dechartre, my friend, do you not think the Bineau Boulevard is the
dusty one over there, at the right?"

"Farewell, Monsieur Choulette," said Therese. "Remember me when you are
a senator."

"Madame, I do not forget you in any of my prayers, morning and evening.
And I say to God: 'Since, in your anger, you gave to her riches and
beauty, regard her, Lord, with kindness, and treat her in accordance
with your sovereign mercy."

And he went erect, and dragging his leg, along the populous avenue.

CHAPTER XXX. A LETTER FROM ROBERT

Enveloped in a mantle of pink broad cloth, Therese went down the steps
with Dechartre. He had come in the morning to Joinville. She had made
him join the circle of her intimate friends, before the hunting-party to
which she feared Le Menil had been invited, as was the custom. The light
air of September agitated the curls of her hair, and the sun made golden
darts shine in the profound gray of her eyes. Behind them, the facade of
the palace displayed above the three arcades of the first story, in the
intervals of the windows, on long tables, busts of Roman emperors. The
house was placed between two tall pavilions which their great slate
roofs made