e
elect of the nation. You are the obscure delegates of a department."
He predicted to them the fate of the Girondins. The noise of his spurs
accompanied the sound of his voice. Count Martin remained trembling the
rest of his life, and tremblingly recalled the Bourbons after the defeat
of the Emperor. The two restorations were in vain; the July government
and the Second Empire covered his oppressed breast with crosses and
cordons. Raised to the highest functions, loaded with honors by three
kings and one emperor, he felt forever on his shoulder the hand of the
Corsican. He died a senator of Napoleon III, and left a son agitated by
the same fear.

This son had married Mademoiselle Belleme, daughter of the first
president of the court of Bourges, and with her the political glories
of a family which gave three ministers to the moderate monarch. The
Bellemes, advocates in the time of Louis XV, elevated the Jacobin
origins of the Martins. The second Count Martin was a member of all the
Assemblies until his death in 1881. His son took without trouble his
seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Having married Mademoiselle Therese
Montessuy, whose dowry supported his political fortune, he appeared
discreetly among the four or five bourgeois, titled and wealthy, who
rallied to democracy, and were received without much bad grace by the
republicans, whom aristocracy flattered.

In the dining-room, Count Martin-Belleme was doing the honors of his
table with the good grace, the sad politeness, recently prescribed at
the Elysee to represent isolated France at a great northern court. From
time to time he addressed vapid phrases to Madame Garain at his right;
to the Princess Seniavine at his left, who, loaded with diamonds, felt
bored. Opposite him, on the other side of the table, Countess Martin,
having by her side General Lariviere and M. Schmoll, member of the
Academie des Inscriptions, caressed with her fan her smooth white
shoulders. At the two semicircles, whereby the dinner-table was
prolonged, were M. Montessuy, robust, with blue eyes and ruddy
complexion; a young cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom, embarrassed by
her long, thin arms; the painter Duviquet; M. Daniel Salomon; then Paul
Vence and Garain the deputy; Belleme de Saint-Nom; an unknown senator;
and Dechartre, who was dining at the house for the first time. The
conversation, at first trivial and insignificant, was prolonged into a
confused murmur, above which rose Garain's