e of the
princes, were to go and do something rashly scandalous directly after
a private interview with the minister. In a changed voice he put a
question to the point:

"Your relation--this Feraud?"

"No. No relation at all."

"Intimate friend?"

"Intimate... yes. There is between us an intimate connection of a nature
which makes it a point of honour with me to try..."

The minister rang a bell without waiting for the end of the phrase.
When the servant had gone, after bringing in a pair of heavy silver
candelabra for the writing desk, the Duke of Otranto stood up, his
breast glistening all over with gold in the strong light, and taking a
piece of paper out of a drawer held it in his hand ostentatiously while
he said with persuasive gentleness:

"You must not talk of breaking your sword across your knee, general.
Perhaps you would never get another. The emperor shall not return this
time.... _Diable d'homme!_ There was just a moment here in Paris, soon
after Waterloo, when he frightened me. It looked as though he were going
to begin again. Luckily one never does begin again really. You must not
think of breaking your sword, general."

General D'Hubert, his eyes fixed on the ground, made with his hand a
hopeless gesture of renunciation. The Minister of Police turned his
eyes away from him and began to scan deliberately the paper he had been
holding up all the time.

"There are only twenty general officers to be brought before the Special
Commission. Twenty. A round number. And let's see, Feraud. Ah, he's
there! Gabriel Florian. _Parfaitement_. That's your man. Well, there
will be only nineteen examples made now."

General D'Hubert stood up feeling as though he had gone through an
infectious illness.

"I must beg your Excellency to keep my interference a profound secret. I
attach the greatest importance to his never knowing..."

"Who is going to inform him I should like to know," said Fouche, raising
his eyes curiously to General D'Hubert's white face. "Take one of these
pens and run it through the name yourself. This is the only list in
existence. If you are careful to take up enough ink no one will be able
to tell even what was the name thus struck out. But, _par example_, I am
not responsible for what Clarke will do with him. If he persist in
being rabid he will be ordered by the Minster of War to reside in some
provincial town under the supervision of the police."

A few days later General D'Hubert wa