steau, "for the foreman has torn off the rest in
wrapping up my proofs. But it is enough to show that the author was full
of promise."

"I cannot make head or tail of it," said Gatien Boirouge, who was the
first to break the silence of the party from Sancerre.

"Nor I," replied Monsieur Gravier.

"And yet it is a novel of the time of the Empire," said Lousteau.

"By the way in which the brigand is made to speak," said Monsieur
Gravier, "it is evident that the author knew nothing of Italy. Banditti
do not allow themselves such graceful conceits."

Madame Gorju came up to Bianchon, seeing him pensive, and with a glance
towards her daughter Mademoiselle Euphemie Gorju, the owner of a fairly
good fortune--"What a rhodomontade!" said she. "The prescriptions you
write are worth more than all that rubbish."

The Mayoress had elaborately worked up this speech, which, in her
opinion, showed strong judgment.

"Well, madame, we must be lenient, we have but twenty pages out of a
thousand," said Bianchon, looking at Mademoiselle Gorju, whose figure
threatened terrible things after the birth of her first child.

"Well, Monsieur de Clagny," said Lousteau, "we were talking yesterday
of the forms of revenge invented by husbands. What do you say to those
invented by wives?"

"I say," replied the Public Prosecutor, "that the romance is not by
a Councillor of State, but by a woman. For extravagant inventions the
imagination of women far outdoes that of men; witness _Frankenstein_ by
Mrs. Shelley, _Leone Leoni_ by George Sand, the works of Anne Radcliffe,
and the _Nouveau Promethee_ (New Prometheus) of Camille de Maupin."

Dinah looked steadily at Monsieur de Clagny, making him feel, by an
expression that gave him a chill, that in spite of the illustrious
examples he had quoted, she regarded this as a reflection on _Paquita la
Sevillane_.

"Pooh!" said little Baudraye, "the Duke of Bracciano, whom his wife puts
into a cage, and to whom she shows herself every night in the arms of
her lover, will kill her--and do you call that revenge?--Our laws and
our society are far more cruel."

"Why, little La Baudraye is talking!" said Monsieur Boirouge to his
wife.

"Why, the woman is left to live on a small allowance, the world turns
its back on her, she has no more finery, and no respect paid her--the
two things which, in my opinion, are the sum-total of woman," said the
little old man.

"But she has happiness!" said Madame de la B