As De Mauleon approached, the financier brought his speech to an abrupt
close. He knew in the Vicomte de Mauleon the writer of articles which
had endangered the Government, and aimed no pointless shafts against its
Imperial head.

"My cousin," said Enguerrand, gaily, as he exchanged a cordial shake
of the hand with Victor, "I congratulate you on the fame of journalist,
into which you have vaulted, armed cap-a pie, like a knight of old into
his saddle; but I don't sympathise with the means you have taken to
arrive at that renown. I am not myself an Imperialist--a Vandemar can be
scarcely that. But if I am compelled to be on board a ship, I don't
wish to take out its planks and let in an ocean, when all offered to me
instead is a crazy tub and a rotten rope."

"Tres bien," said Duplessis, in Parliamentary tone and phrase.

"But," said De Mauleon, with his calm smile, "would you like the captain
of the ship, when the sky darkened and the sea rose, to ask the common
sailors 'whether they approved his conduct on altering his course or
shortening his sail'? Better trust to a crazy tub and a rotten rope than
to a ship in which the captain consults a plebiscite."

"Monsieur," said Duplessis, "your metaphor is ill chosen no metaphor
indeed is needed. The head of the State was chosen by the voice of the
people, and, when required to change the form of administration which
the people had sanctioned, and inclined to do so from motives the most
patriotic and liberal, he is bound again to consult the people from
whom he holds his power. It is not, however, of the plebiscite we were
conversing, so much as of the atrocious conspiracy of assassins--so
happily discovered in time. I presume that Monsieur de Mauleon must
share the indignation which true Frenchmen of every party must feel
against a combination united by the purpose of murder."

The Vicomte bowed as in assent. "But do you believe," asked a Liberal
Depute, "that such a combination existed, except in the visions of the
police or the cabinet of a Minister?"

Duplessis looked keenly at De Mauleon while this question was put to
him. Belief or disbelief in the conspiracy was with him, and with many,
the test by which a sanguinary revolutionist was distinguished from an
honest politician.

"Ma foi," answered De Mauleon, shrugging his shoulders, "I have only one
belief left; but that is boundless. I believe in the folly of mankind
in general, and of Frenchmen in particular. T