n, where M. Morrel had agreed to meet him.

Chapter 6. The Deputy Procureur du Roi.

In one of the aristocratic mansions built by Puget in the Rue du Grand
Cours opposite the Medusa fountain, a second marriage feast was being
celebrated, almost at the same hour with the nuptial repast given
by Dantes. In this case, however, although the occasion of the
entertainment was similar, the company was strikingly dissimilar.
Instead of a rude mixture of sailors, soldiers, and those belonging to
the humblest grade of life, the present assembly was composed of the
very flower of Marseilles society,--magistrates who had resigned their
office during the usurper's reign; officers who had deserted from the
imperial army and joined forces with Conde; and younger members of
families, brought up to hate and execrate the man whom five years of
exile would convert into a martyr, and fifteen of restoration elevate to
the rank of a god.

The guests were still at table, and the heated and energetic
conversation that prevailed betrayed the violent and vindictive passions
that then agitated each dweller of the South, where unhappily, for five
centuries religious strife had long given increased bitterness to the
violence of party feeling.

The emperor, now king of the petty Island of Elba, after having held
sovereign sway over one-half of the world, counting as his subjects
a small population of five or six thousand souls,--after having been
accustomed to hear the "Vive Napoleons" of a hundred and twenty millions
of human beings, uttered in ten different languages,--was looked upon
here as a ruined man, separated forever from any fresh connection with
France or claim to her throne.

The magistrates freely discussed their political views; the military
part of the company talked unreservedly of Moscow and Leipsic, while
the women commented on the divorce of Josephine. It was not over the
downfall of the man, but over the defeat of the Napoleonic idea, that
they rejoiced, and in this they foresaw for themselves the bright and
cheering prospect of a revivified political existence.

An old man, decorated with the cross of Saint Louis, now rose and
proposed the health of King Louis XVIII. It was the Marquis de
Saint-Meran. This toast, recalling at once the patient exile of Hartwell
and the peace-loving King of France, excited universal enthusiasm;
glasses were elevated in the air a l'Anglais, and the ladies, snatching
their bouquets from t