w! You have an object in view which should
make you swallow all these disagreeable trifles as if they were as sweet
as honey. Is it possible you would like me to play Bertrand and Raton? I
should be Raton the oftener of the two!"

"But, really, what did you do all day?"

Marillac posed before the mirror, arranged his kerchief about his head in
a more picturesque fashion, twisted his moustache, puffed out, through
the corner of his mouth, a cloud of smoke, which surrounded his face like
a London fog, then turned to his friend and said, with the air of a
person perfectly satisfied with himself:

"Upon my faith, my dear friend, each one for himself and God for us all!
You, for example, indulge in romantic love-affairs; you must have titled
ladies. Titles turn your head and make you exclusive. You make love to
the aristocracy; so be it, that is your own concern. As for me, I have
another system; I am, in all matters of sentiment, what I am in politics:
I want republican institutions."

"What is all that nonsense about?"

"Let me tell you. I want universal suffrage, the cooperation of all
citizens, admission to all offices, general elections, a popular
government, in a word, a sound, patriotic hash. Which means regarding
women that I carry them all in my heart, that I recognize between them no
distinction of caste or rank. Article First of my set of laws: all women
are equal in love, provided they are young, pretty, admirably attractive
in shape and carriage, above all, not too thin."

"And what of equality?"

"So much the worse. With this eminently liberal and constitutional
policy, I intend to gather all the flowers that will allow themselves to
be gathered by me, without one being esteemed more fresh than another,
because it belongs to the nobility, or another less sweet, because
plebeian. And as field daisies are a little more numerous than imperial
roses, it follows that I very often stoop. That is the reason why, at
this very moment, I am up to my ears in a little rustic love affair:

Simple et naive bergerette, elle regne--"

"Stop that noise; Mademoiselle de Corandeuil's room is just underneath."

"I will tell you then, since I must give an account of myself, that I
went into the park to sketch a few fir-trees before dinner; they are more
beautiful of their kind than the ancient Fontainebleau oaks. That is for
art. At dinner, I dined nobly and well. To do the Bergenheims justice,
they live in a roy