ovince with
the love of farm-wenches, or small tradesmen professing medicine or law
within their sub-prefectures, after having made verses for the female
tax-gatherer, all, you understand, all are hungry to know that unknown
creature: _woman_. And speedily enough the woman has drained their
Excellencies. Oh! yes, even to the marrow! She robs the Opposition of
its energy; the faithful to liberty, of the virility of their faith.
Energetic ministers or ministers with ideas are not long before woman
destroys both their strength and their ideas. Eh! _parbleu!_ it is just
because they do not rule Paris as one pleads a civil suit in a
provincial court."

The minister listened with a somewhat anxious, sober air to these
truisms, clear-cut as with a knife, expressed by the old journalist
without passion, without exasperation, without anger. He was, in fact,
pleased that Ramel should speak to him so candidly.

Yes, indeed, what the old "veteran,"--as Denis sometimes called
himself--said, were Vaudrey's own sentiments. These sufficiently
saddening observations he had himself made more than once. It was
precisely to put an end to such abuses, folly, and provincialism, this
hobbling spirit inculcated in a great nation, that he had assumed power,
and was about to increase his efforts.

He thanked Ramel profusely and sincerely. This visit would not be his
last, he would often return to this Rue Boursault where he knew that a
true friend would be waiting.

"And you will be right," said Denis. "Nowhere will you find a love more
profound, or hear truths more frankly spoken. You see, Vaudrey, the
walls of the ministerial apartments are too thick. There, neither the
noise of carriages nor the sound of street-cries is heard. I have passed
a few days in a palace--in '48,--at the Tuileries, as a national guard:
at the end of two hours, I heard nothing. The carpets, the curtains,
stifled everything, and, believe me, a cannon might have been fired
without my hearing anything more than an echo, much less could I hear
the truth! Besides, people do not like to pronounce truth too loudly.
They are afraid."

"I swear to you that I will listen to everything," replied Sulpice, "and
I will strive to understand everything. And since I have the power--"

Denis Ramel shook his head:

"Power? Ah! you will see if that is ever taken in any but homoeopathic
doses! Why, you will have against you the _bureaux_, those sacrosanct
_bureaux_ that have gove