of Napoleon III, and left a son agitated by
the same fear.

This son had married Mademoiselle Belleme, daughter of the first
president of the court of Bourges, and with her the political glories of
a family which gave three ministers to the moderate monarch. The
Bellemes, advocates in the time of Louis XV, elevated the Jacobin origins
of the Martins. The second Count Martin was a member of all the
Assemblies until his death in 1881. His son took without trouble his seat
in the Chamber of Deputies. Having married Mademoiselle Therese
Montessuy, whose dowry supported his political fortune, he appeared
discreetly among the four or five bourgeois, titled and wealthy, who
rallied to democracy, and were received without much bad grace by the
republicans, whom aristocracy flattered.

In the dining-room, Count Martin-Belleme was doing the honors of his
table with the good grace, the sad politeness, recently prescribed at the
Elysee to represent isolated France at a great northern court. From time
to time he addressed vapid phrases to Madame Garain at his right; to the
Princess Seniavine at his left, who, loaded with diamonds, felt bored.
Opposite him, on the other side of the table, Countess Martin, having by
her side General Lariviere and M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des
Inscriptions, caressed with her fan her smooth white shoulders. At the
two semicircles, whereby the dinner-table was prolonged, were M.
Montessuy, robust, with blue eyes and ruddy complexion; a young cousin,
Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom, embarrassed by her long, thin arms; the
painter Duviquet; M. Daniel Salomon; then Paul Vence and Garain the
deputy; Belleme de Saint-Nom; an unknown senator; and Dechartre, who was
dining at the house for the first time. The conversation, at first
trivial and insignificant, was prolonged into a confused murmur, above
which rose Garain's voice:

"Every false idea is dangerous. People think that dreamers do no harm.
They are mistaken: dreamers do a great heal of harm. Even apparently
inoffensive utopian ideas really exercise a noxious influence. They tend
to inspire disgust at reality."

"It is, perhaps, because reality is not beautiful," said Paul Vence.

M. Garain said that he had always been in favor of all possible
improvements. He had asked for the suppression of permanent armies in the
time of the Empire, for the separation of church and state, and had
remained always faithful to democracy. His device, he said, w