sobey an order from the
Emperor?"

"As to that, my dear colleague, I am responsible. You know the view I
take of that order. I am not alone. Several of my brother Prefects agree
with me. It is impolitic, and worse, offensive. The Emperor is
reasonable, and does not expect a blind obedience which would really do
harm to the Empire."

"Do not make too sure of that, Monsieur le Prefet."

"If the old provincial families are to be brought round _en masse_ to
the Empire, it must be done by diplomacy, not by a tyrannical domestic
legislation."

"At that rate, Monsieur le Prefet, the work will take a hundred years.
They laugh at your diplomacy, these infernal old families. Propose a
soldier as a husband for one of their daughters, and you will see."

"I have not done so," the Prefect said very drily, and the glance that
shot from under his quiet eyelids might have made a thin-skinned person
uncomfortable.

"And nothing would make you do so, I suppose," sneered the General.
"Come, monsieur, you should forget your aristocracy now and then, and
remember that you are a servant of the Emperor. People will begin to say
that His Majesty might be better served."

Monsieur de Mauves shrugged his shoulders, and reflected that if the
Emperor had wished to punish him for some crime, he could not have done
it better than by giving him this person for a colleague. Fortunately he
had a splendid temper; Urbain de la Mariniere himself was not endowed
with a larger share of sweet reasonableness. Most men would not have
endured the General's insolence for five minutes. The Prefect's love of
peace and sense of public duty, united with extreme fairness of mind,
helped him to make large allowances for his fellow-official. He knew
that Ratoneau's vapouring talk was oftener in coarse joke than in sober
earnest. He had, in truth, a very complete scorn of him, and hardly
thought him worthy of a gentleman's steel. As to veiled threats such as
that which had just fallen from his lips, the Prefect found them
altogether beneath serious notice.

"Let us arrive at understanding each other, General," he said coldly,
but very politely. "You began by asking me to do you a favour. Then you
branched off to a duty I had neglected. You now give me a friendly
warning. Is it, perhaps, because you fear to lose me as a colleague,
that you have become anxious about my reports to His Majesty?" he
smiled. "Or, how, I ask again, does the matter interest you?"

"