He is just the man to
say, 'Here is my commission, leave me in peace,' if the King should say
a word that he did not like."

"Then, pray, what are his opinions?"

"Very unsound."

"Really," sighed the Princess, "the King is, as he always has been, a
Jacobin under the Lilies of France."

"Oh! not quite so bad," said the Vidame.

"Yes; I have known him for a long while. The man that pointed out the
Court to his wife on the occasion of her first state dinner in public
with, 'These are our people,' could only be a black-hearted scoundrel.
I can see Monsieur exactly the same as ever in the King. The bad brother
who voted so wrongly in his department of the Constituent Assembly was
sure to compound with the Liberals and allow them to argue and talk.
This philosophical cant will be just as dangerous now for the younger
brother as it used to be for the elder; this fat man with the little
mind is amusing himself by creating difficulties, and how his successor
is to get out of them I do not know; he holds his younger brother in
abhorrence; he would be glad to think as he lay dying, 'He will not
reign very long----'"

"Aunt, he is the King, and I have the honour to be in his service----"

"But does your post take away your right of free speech, my dear? You
come of quite as good a house as the Bourbons. If the Guises had shown a
little more resolution, His Majesty would be a nobody at this day. It is
time I went out of this world, the noblesse is dead. Yes, it is all
over with you, my children," she continued, looking as she spoke at the
Vidame. "What has my niece done that the whole town should be talking
about her? She is in the wrong; I disapprove of her conduct, a useless
scandal is a blunder; that is why I still have my doubts about this want
of regard for appearances; I brought her up, and I know that----"

Just at that moment the Duchess came out of her boudoir. She had
recognised her aunt's voice and heard the name of Montriveau. She
was still in her loose morning-gown; and even as she came in, M.
de Grandlieu, looking carelessly out of the window, saw his niece's
carriage driving back along the street. The Duke took his daughter's
face in both hands and kissed her on the forehead.

"So, dear girl," he said, "you do not know what is going on?"

"Has anything extraordinary happened, father dear?"

"Why, all Paris believes that you are with M. de Montriveau."

"My dear Antoinette, you were at home all the time,