the last corner, they were talking politics. The Charter which had
been granted was getting roughly handled. Combeferre was upholding it
weakly. Courfeyrac was energetically making a breach in it. On the table
lay an unfortunate copy of the famous Touquet Charter. Courfeyrac had
seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the
rattling of this sheet of paper.

"In the first place, I won't have any kings; if it were only from an
economical point of view, I don't want any; a king is a parasite. One
does not have kings gratis. Listen to this: the dearness of kings. At
the death of Francois I., the national debt of France amounted to an
income of thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV. it was two
milliards, six hundred millions, at twenty-eight livres the mark, which
was equivalent in 1760, according to Desmarets, to four milliards, five
hundred millions, which would to-day be equivalent to twelve milliards.
In the second place, and no offence to Combeferre, a charter granted is
but a poor expedient of civilization. To save the transition, to soften
the passage, to deaden the shock, to cause the nation to pass insensibly
from the monarchy to democracy by the practice of constitutional
fictions,--what detestable reasons all those are! No! no! let us never
enlighten the people with false daylight. Principles dwindle and pale
in your constitutional cellar. No illegitimacy, no compromise, no grant
from the king to the people. In all such grants there is an Article 14.
By the side of the hand which gives there is the claw which snatches
back. I refuse your charter point-blank. A charter is a mask; the lie
lurks beneath it. A people which accepts a charter abdicates. The law is
only the law when entire. No! no charter!"

It was winter; a couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This
was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crumpled the poor
Touquet Charter in his fist, and flung it in the fire. The paper
flashed up. Combeferre watched the masterpiece of Louis XVIII. burn
philosophically, and contented himself with saying:--

"The charter metamorphosed into flame."

And sarcasms, sallies, jests, that French thing which is called entrain,
and that English thing which is called humor, good and bad taste,
good and bad reasons, all the wild pyrotechnics of dialogue, mounting
together and crossing from all points of the room, produced a sort of
merry bombardment over their heads.