right to visit the Thuilliers
on Sundays. Great dowries make men commit great and unbecoming follies
without reserve or decency in these days.

Ten minutes later another young man, who had been talking with Thuillier
before the arrival of Olivier Vinet, raised his voice eagerly, in a
political discussion, and forced the young magistrate to follow his
example in the vivacious argument which now ensued. The matter related
to the vote by which the Chamber of Deputies had just overthrown the
ministry of the 12th of May, refusing the allowance demanded for the Duc
de Nemours.

"Assuredly," said the young man, "I am far from belonging to the
dynastic party; I am very far from approving of the rise of the
bourgeoisie to power. The bourgeoisie ought not, any more than the
aristocracy of other days, to assume to be the whole nation. But the
French bourgeoisie has now taken upon itself to create a new dynasty, a
royalty of its own, and behold how it treats it! When the people allowed
Napoleon to rise to power, it created with him a splendid and monumental
state of things; it was proud of his grandeur; and it nobly gave its
blood and sweat in building up the edifice of the Empire. Between
the magnificence of the aristocratic throne and those of the imperial
purple, between the great of the earth and the People, the bourgeoisie
is proving itself petty; it degrades power to its own level instead
of rising up to it. The saving of candle-ends it has so long practised
behind its counters, it now seeks to impose on its princes. What may
perhaps have been virtue in its shops is a blunder and a crime higher
up. I myself have wanted many things for the people, but I never should
have begun by lopping off ten millions of francs from the new civil
list. In becoming, as it were, nearly the whole of France, the
bourgeoisie owed to us the prosperity of the people, splendor without
ostentation, grandeur without privilege."

The father of Olivier Vinet was just now sulking with the government.
The robe of Keeper of the Seals, which had been his dream, was slow in
coming to him. The young substitute did not, therefore, know exactly how
to answer this speech; he thought it wise to enlarge on one of its side
issues.

"You are right, monsieur," said Olivier Vinet. "But, before manifesting
itself magnificently, the bourgeoisie has other duties to fulfil towards
France. The luxury you speak of should come after duty. That which seems
to you so bla