that his
friends were becoming excited. "I had heard of this play and its
powerful character. Who's the author, Beauchamp?"

"The production is attributed to M. Dantes, the Deputy from Marseilles,
with what truth I know not; but he is fully capable of composing such a
drama. To-morrow night, it is supposed, the author, whoever he may be,
will be compelled by the people to appear and claim the laurels ready to
be showered on him in such profusion. But it is nearly three o'clock,"
continued Beauchamp, "and M. Dantes is expected to speak in the early
part of the sitting."

"To the Chamber, then," said the others, and the trio mingled with the
crowd hurrying in the same direction.

"What a glorious thing is popularity!" exclaimed the Count.

"What a glorious thing to be the champion of the people!" rejoined
Beauchamp.

"And how glorious is that champion's glorious career!" cried the
Secretary. "Let the hydra alone. Like the antique god of mythology, it
eats up its own children as soon as they get large enough to be eaten.
It is a fickle beast, and the idol of to-day it crushes to-morrow."

The hall of the Chamber of Deputies was crowded when the three friends
entered. Although the hour for the President to take the chair had not
yet arrived, the benches were full, and the galleries, public and
private, were overflowing. Strong agitation was visible among the
Ministerial benches of the extreme left. The Premier himself was
present, although his cold countenance, like the surface of a frozen
lake, betrayed neither apprehension nor the reverse. Self-reliant,
self-poised, calm, seemingly insensible to surrounding objects and
events, this man of iron, with a heart of ice and a brain of fire,
glanced quietly and fixedly around him, with his cold, dark eye, which,
from time to time, rested on the Communist benches of the extreme right,
unmoved by the stern glances hurled at him by his many fierce opponents
and the almost tumultuous excitement by which they were agitated.

At length President Sauzet took the chair. The house came to order, and
the sitting opened with the usual preliminary business. A large number
of petitions from the workmen of Paris for employment by the Government
were presented and referred, and one immense roll containing a hundred
thousand names, which came from the manufacturing districts, was brought
in on the shoulders of two men and placed in the area before the
President's chair, escorted by a de