ten talked away: he was speaking of the
Saturday's ceremonial with eloquent indignation. It was a mockery
to France to talk of her placing Liberty under the protection of the
Empire.

There was a flagrant token of the military force under which civil
freedom was held in the very dress of the Emperor and his insignificant
son: the first in the uniform of a General of Division; the second,
forsooth, in that of a sous-lieutenant. The other liberal chiefs chimed
in: "The army," said one, "was an absurd expense; it must be put down:"
"The world was grown too civilised for war," said another: "The Empress
was priest-ridden," said a third: "Churches might be tolerated; Voltaire
built a church, but a church simply to the God of Nature, not of
priestcraft,"--and so on.

Isaura, whom any sneer at religion pained and revolted, here turned
away from the orators to whom she had before been listening with earnest
attention, and her eyes fell on the countenance of De Mauleon, who was
seated opposite.

The countenance startled her, its expression was so angrily scornful;
that expression, however, vanished at once as De Mauleon's eyes met her
own, and drawing his chair near to her, he said, smiling: "Your look
tells me that I almost frightened you by the ill-bred frankness with
which my face must have betrayed my anger, at hearing such imbecile
twaddle from men who aspire to govern our turbulent France. You remember
that after Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake a quack advertised
'pills against earthquakes.' These messieurs are not so cunning as the
quack; he did not name the ingredients of his pills."

"But, M. de Mauleon," said Isaura, "if you, being opposed to the Empire,
think so ill of the wisdom of those who would destroy it, are you
prepared with remedies for earthquakes more efficacious than their
pills?"

"I reply as a famous English statesman, when in opposition, replied to a
somewhat similar question,--'I don't prescribe till I'm called in.'"

"To judge by the seven millions and a half whose votes were announced
on Saturday, and by the enthusiasm with which the Emperor was greeted,
there is too little fear of an earthquake for a good trade of the
pills of these messieurs, or for fair play to the remedies you will not
disclose till called in."

"Ah, Mademoiselle! playful wit from lips not formed for politics makes
me forget all about emperors and earthquakes. Pardon that commonplace
compliment--remember I am a Fren