so many clever men. In fact, his
misfortune was that of most other ministers who have passed the prime
of life; he trimmed and shuffled under all his difficulties,--with
journalism, which at this period it was thought advisable to repress
in an underhand way rather than fight openly; with financial as well as
labor questions; with the clergy as well as with that other question
of the public lands; with liberalism as with the Chamber. After
manoeuvering his way to power in the course of seven years, the minister
believed that he could manage all questions of administration in the
same way. It is so natural to think we can maintain a position by the
same methods which served us to reach it that no one ventured to blame
a system invented by mediocrity to please minds of its own calibre. The
Restoration, like the Polish revolution, proved to nations as to princes
the true value of a Man, and what will happen if that necessary man is
wanting. The last and the greatest weakness of the public men of the
Restoration was their honesty, in a struggle in which their adversaries
employed the resources of political dishonesty, lies, and calumnies,
and let loose upon them, by all subversive means, the clamor of the
unintelligent masses, able only to understand revolt.

Rabourdin told himself all these things. But he had made up his mind
to win or lose, like a man weary of gambling who allows himself a last
stake; ill-luck had given him as adversary in the game a sharper like
des Lupeaulx. With all his sagacity, Rabourdin was better versed in
matters of administration than in parliamentary optics, and he was far
indeed from imagining how his confidence would be received; he little
thought that the great work that filled his mind would seem to the
minister nothing more than a theory, and that a man who held the
position of a statesman would confound his reform with the schemes of
political and self-interested talkers.

As the minister rose from table, thinking of Francois Keller, his wife
detained him with the offer of a bunch of grapes, and at that moment
Rabourdin was announced. Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister's
preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment
occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet
Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone of
voice:--

"His Excellency and I know what the subject is that occupies your mind;
you have nothing to fear"