mind is amazingly open. You take everything at
its proper worth; your clear-sightedness is extraordinary, there is no
hoodwinking you. You pass for being blind, and all the time you have
laid your hand on causes, while other people are still puzzling over
effects. In short, you are a minister in petticoats, the only person
here capable of understanding me. It follows, then, that if I have any
sacrifice to ask from you, it is only to yourself I can turn for help in
persuading you.

"I am therefore going to explain to you, quite frankly, my former plans,
to which I still adhere. In order to recommend them to you, I must show
that they are connected with feelings of a very high order, and I
shall thus be obliged to enter into political questions of the greatest
importance to the kingdom, which might be wearisome to any one less
intelligent than you are. When you have heard me, I hope you will take
time for consideration, six months if necessary. You are entirely your
own mistress; and if you decline to make the sacrifice I ask, I shall
bow to your decision and trouble you no further."

This preface, my sweetheart, made me really serious, and I said:

"Speak, father."

Here, then, is the deliverance of the statesman:

"My child, France is in a very critical position, which is understood
only by the King and a few superior minds. But the King is a head
without arms; the great nobles, who are in the secret of the danger,
have no authority over the men whose co-operation is needful in order
to bring about a happy result. These men, cast up by popular election,
refuse to lend themselves as instruments. Even the able men among them
carry on the work of pulling down society, instead of helping us to
strengthen the edifice.

"In a word, there are only two parties--the party of Marius and the
party of Sulla. I am for Sulla against Marius. This, roughly speaking,
is our position. To go more into details: the Revolution is still
active; it is embedded in the law and written on the soil; it fills
people's minds. The danger is all the greater because the greater number
of the King's counselors, seeing it destitute of armed forces and of
money, believe it completely vanquished. The King is an able man, and
not easily blinded; but from day to day he is won over by his brother's
partisans, who want to hurry things on. He has not two years to live,
and thinks more of a peaceful deathbed than of anything else.

"Shall I tell you, m