heir fair bosoms, strewed the table with their
floral treasures. In a word, an almost poetical fervor prevailed.

"Ah," said the Marquise de Saint-Meran, a woman with a stern, forbidding
eye, though still noble and distinguished in appearance, despite her
fifty years--"ah, these revolutionists, who have driven us from those
very possessions they afterwards purchased for a mere trifle during the
Reign of Terror, would be compelled to own, were they here, that all
true devotion was on our side, since we were content to follow the
fortunes of a falling monarch, while they, on the contrary, made their
fortune by worshipping the rising sun; yes, yes, they could not help
admitting that the king, for whom we sacrificed rank, wealth, and
station was truly our 'Louis the well-beloved,' while their wretched
usurper his been, and ever will be, to them their evil genius, their
'Napoleon the accursed.' Am I not right, Villefort?"

"I beg your pardon, madame. I really must pray you to excuse me, but--in
truth--I was not attending to the conversation."

"Marquise, marquise!" interposed the old nobleman who had proposed the
toast, "let the young people alone; let me tell you, on one's wedding
day there are more agreeable subjects of conversation than dry
politics."

"Never mind, dearest mother," said a young and lovely girl, with a
profusion of light brown hair, and eyes that seemed to float in liquid
crystal, "'tis all my fault for seizing upon M. de Villefort, so as to
prevent his listening to what you said. But there--now take him--he is
your own for as long as you like. M. Villefort, I beg to remind you my
mother speaks to you."

"If the marquise will deign to repeat the words I but imperfectly
caught, I shall be delighted to answer," said M. de Villefort.

"Never mind, Renee," replied the marquise, with a look of tenderness
that seemed out of keeping with her harsh dry features; but, however all
other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one
bright smiling spot in the desert of her heart, and that is the shrine
of maternal love. "I forgive you. What I was saying, Villefort, was,
that the Bonapartists had not our sincerity, enthusiasm, or devotion."

"They had, however, what supplied the place of those fine qualities,"
replied the young man, "and that was fanaticism. Napoleon is the
Mahomet of the West, and is worshipped by his commonplace but
ambitions followers, not only as a leader and lawgiver, b