all
pack him back to his club--him, his flower, and his buttonhole! You may
set that down for a sure thing--"

"Dear uncle!" said Madame de Tecle, indicating Camors with a glance.

"I understand you, Elise," laughingly rejoined M. des Rameures, "but I
must beg Monsieur de Camors to believe that I do not in any case intend
to offend him. I shall also beg him to tolerate the monomania of an old
man, and some freedom of language with regard to the only subject which
makes him lose his sang froid."

"And what is that subject, Monsieur?" said Camors, with his habitual
captivating grace of manner.

"That subject, Monsieur, is the arrogant supremacy assumed by Paris over
all the rest of France. I have not put my foot in the place since 1825,
in order to testify the abhorrence with which it inspires me. You are an
educated, sensible young man, and, I trust, a good Frenchman. Very well!
Is it right, I ask, that Paris shall every morning send out to us
our ideas ready-made, and that all France shall become a mere humble,
servile faubourg to the capital? Do me the favor, I pray you, Monsieur,
to answer that?"

"There is doubtless, my dear sir," replied Camors, "some excess in this
extreme centralization of France; but all civilized countries must have
their capitals, and a head is just as necessary to a nation as to an
individual."

"Taking your own image, Monsieur, I shall turn it against you. Yes,
doubtless a head is as necessary to a nation as to an individual;
if, however, the head becomes monstrous and deformed, the seat of
intelligence will be turned into that of idiocy, and in place of a man
of intellect, you have a hydrocephalus. Pray give heed to what Monsieur
the Sub-prefect, may say in answer to what I shall ask him. Now, my
dear Sub-prefect, be frank. If tomorrow, the deputation of this district
should become vacant, can you find within its broad limits, or indeed
within the district, a man likely to fill all functions, good and bad?"

"Upon my word," answered the official, "if you continue to refuse the
office, I really know of no one else fit for it."

"I shall persist all my life, Monsieur, for at my age assuredly I shall
not expose myself to the buffoonery of your Parisian jesters."

"Very well! In that event you will be obliged to take some
stranger--perhaps, even one of those Parisian jesters."

"You have heard him, Monsieur de Camors," said M. des Rameures, with
exultation. "This district numbers six