France who understood the human frame so well."

"Ah!" said the Abbe Brigaud, folding his papers, "here is the first
savant on record who has been known to make a bon-mot. It is true that
he did not intend it."

And D'Harmental and Pompadour, having taken leave of the duchess,
retired laughing, followed by the Abbe Brigaud, who reckoned on them to
drive him home.

"Well," said Madame de Maine, addressing the Cardinal de Polignac, "does
your eminence still find it such a terrible thing to conspire?"

"Madame," replied the cardinal, who could not understand that any one
could laugh when their head was in danger, "I will ask you the same
question when we are all in the Bastille."

And he went away with the good chancellor, deploring the ill-luck which
had thrown him into such a rash enterprise.

The duchess looked after him with a contempt which she could not
disguise: then, when she was alone with De Launay:

"My dear Sophy," said she, "let us put out our lantern, for I think we
have found a man."

CHAPTER VII.

ALBERONI.

When D'Harmental awoke, he wondered if all had been a dream. Events had,
during the last thirty-six hours, succeeded each other with such
rapidity, that he had been carried away, as by a whirlpool, without
knowing where he was going. Now for the first time he had leisure to
reflect on the past and the future.

These were times in which every one conspired more or less. We know the
natural bent of the mind in such a case. The first feeling we
experience, after having made an engagement in a moment of exaltation,
is one almost of regret for having been so forward. Little by little we
become familiarized with the idea of the dangers we are running.
Imagination removes them from our sight, and presents instead the
ambitions we may realize. Pride soon becomes mingled with it, as we
think that we have become a secret power in the State. We walk along
proudly, with head erect, passing contemptuously those who lead an
ordinary life; we cradle ourselves in our hopes, and wake one morning
conquering or conquered; carried on the shoulders of the people, or
broken by the wheels of that machine called the government.

Thus it was with D'Harmental. After a few moments' reflection, he saw
things under the same aspect as he had done the day before, and
congratulated himself upon having taken the highest place among such
people as the Montmorencies and the Polignacs. His family had
transmitted t