the Emperor?" asked Finot.

"He is my god," answered Philippe Bridau.

"You are a Liberal?"

"I shall always belong to the Constitutional Opposition. Oh Foy! oh
Manuel! oh Laffitte! what men they are! They'll rid us of these
others,--these wretches, who came back to France at the heels of the
enemy."

"Well," said Finot coldly, "you ought to make something out of your
misfortunes; for you are the victim of the Liberals, my good fellow.
Stay a Liberal, if you really value your opinions, but threaten the
party with the follies in Texas which you are ready to show up. You
never got a farthing of the national subscription, did you? Well, then
you hold a fine position: demand an account of that subscription. I'll
tell you how you can do it. A new Opposition journal is just starting,
under the auspices of the deputies of the Left; you shall be the
cashier, with a salary of three thousand francs. A permanent place.
All you want is some one to go security for you in twenty thousand
francs; find that, and you shall be installed within a week. I'll
advise the Liberals to silence you by giving you the place. Meantime,
talk, threaten,--threaten loudly."

Giroudeau let Philippe, who was profuse in his thanks, go down a few
steps before him, and then he turned back to say to his nephew, "Well,
you are a queer fellow! you keep me here on twelve hundred francs--"

"That journal won't live a year," said Finot. "I've got something
better for you."

"Thunder!" cried Philippe to Giroudeau. "He's no fool, that nephew of
yours. I never once thought of making something, as he calls it, out
of my position."

That night at the cafe Lemblin and the cafe Minerve Colonel Philippe
fulminated against the Liberal party, which had raised subscriptions,
sent heroes to Texas, talked hypocritically of Soldier-laborers, and
left them to starve, after taking the money they had put into it, and
keeping them in exile for two years.

"I am going to demand an account of the moneys collected by the
subscription for the Champ d'Asile," he said to one of the frequenters
of the cafe, who repeated it to the journalists of the Left.

Philippe did not go back to the rue Mazarin; he went to Mariette and
told her of his forthcoming appointment on a newspaper with ten
thousand subscribers, in which her choregraphic claims should be
warmly advanced.

Agathe and Madame Descoings waited up for Philippe in fear and
trembling, for the Duc de Berry had just bee