as heard their family, their lives
spoken of! And he has not been inspired with too great a horror to accept
the gold of that adventurer. Does he not know what a name is? Our name!
It is ourselves, our honor, in the mouths, in the thoughts, of others!
How happy I am, Dorsenne, to have been fifty-two years of age last month.
I shall be gone before having seen what you will see, the agony of all
the aristocrats and royalties. It was only in blood that they fell! But
they do not fall. Alas! They fix themselves upon the ground, which is the
saddest of all. Still, what matters it? The monarchy, the nobility, and
the Church are everlasting. The people who disregard them will die, that
is all. Come, write your letter, which I will sign. Send it away, and you
will dine with me. We must go into the den provided with an argument
which will prevent this duel, and sustaining our part toward our client.
There must be an arrangement which I would accept myself. I like him, I
repeat."

The excitement which began to startle Dorsenne was only augmented during
dinner, so much the more so as, on discussing the conditions of that
arrangement he hoped to bring about, the recollection of his terrible
youth filled the thoughts and the discourse of the former duellist. Was
it, indeed, the same personage who recited the verses of a hymn in the
catacombs a few hours before? It only required the feudal in him to be
reawakened to transform him. The fire in his eyes and the color in his
face betrayed that the duel in which he had thought best to engage, out
of charity, intoxicated him on his own statement. It was the old amateur,
the epicure of the sword, very ungovernable, which stirred within that
man of faith, in whom passion had burned and who had loved all
excitement, including that of danger, as to-day he loved his ideas, as he
loved his flagi mmoderately. He no longer thought of the three women to
be spared suspicion, nor of the good deed to be accomplished. He saw all
his old friends and their talent for fighting, the thrusts of this one,
the way another had of striking, the composure of a third, and then this
refrain interrupted constantly his warlike anecdotes: "But why the deuce
has Gorka chosen that Hafner for his second?.... It is
incomprehensible.".... On entering the carriage which was to bear them to
their interview, he heard Dorsenne say to the coachman: "Palais
Savorelli."

"That is the final blow," said he, raising his arm and c