the
gentlemen, who had their supper in Count Henry's room. Monsieur
Pierre's fireworks had so heated him, that he was not to be got out of
the cool cellars that night at all; and I was only too happy to take
his place, and have a good look at my young count. But my pleasure was
soon spoiled, for the count his father soon began to talk again, as he
used to do, of the good old times. 'The young folks of the present
day,' he said, 'are fit for nothing but to sit by the chimney-corner,
with their noses on their books--worse still, to write themselves--even
for the daily papers.' I don't remember all he said--only some things
that appeared to me the worst--some things I shall not forget to my
dying-day.

"You must know. Sir, that when Count Henry had been a half-grown lad,
he had, been taken to Paris by his father, just when the Empire was at
its height; and as the old count (grand-father to our Count Ernest) had
always been of those to whom Napoleon was as a god, of course they met
with the best reception. The old count had been at Paris before, for
some years during the revolution; and most of those bad bloody men had
been his friends; and Count Henry began to talk of these. 'Do you
suppose,' he said, 'that the Emperor could have fought these battles
with our good bourgeois of the present day? Wild beasts those were he
had to tame, and to let loose upon his enemies. There was a scent of
blood in the very air of Paris then, that was withering to the sicklier
plants; and turned the weaker spirits faint. But to a resolute man,
the sulphureous atmosphere proved intoxicating. He would have dared
a thousand devils. And as the men, so the women; all had tasted
blood--and blood makes brighter eyes than household dust. Just look at
our present world,'--he said--'our German world at least--compared to
that! all so prim, precise, and regular, like the straight lines of a
Dutch garden. Fathers, schoolmasters, and wise professors are there to
trim it, and if anything escapes them, there is the police. If ever the
brute begins to shew itself in man,--in civilized man--quick comes
the police with a summons to expel it; but the beast is not to be
expelled--it must have blood--if not in pailfuls, at least in drops--it
will turn sneakingly domestic, and suck it from the veins of its
nearest neighbour. Out upon the small sly social vices of the day! they
are so shabby!--worse:--they are so stupid!--see what they will do for
this puny gener