your epaulettes as colonel."

"That, too, is on the cards," said the abbe, sipping his glass quietly.
"One can credit anything these times."

"Even the Catholic religion, Abbe," said De Beauvais, laughing.

"Or the Restoration," replied the abbe, with a half-malicious look at
the prefet, which seemed greatly to amuse the Russian.

"Or the Restoration!" repeated the prefet, solemnly, after him,--"or the
Restoration!" And then filling his glass to the brim, he drained it to
the bottom.

"It is a hussar corps you are appointed to?" said De Beauvais, hastily
turning towards me, as if anxious to engage my attention.

"Yes; the huitieme," said I: "do you know them?"

"No; I have few acquaintances in the army."

"His father, sir," said the prefet, with a voice of considerable
emphasis, "was an old garde du corps in those times when the sword was
only worn by gentlemen."

"So much the worse for the army," whispered the abbe, in an undertone,
that was sufficiently audible to the rest to cause an outbreak of
laughter.

"And when," continued the prefet, undisturbed by the interruption,
"birth had its privileges."

"Among the rest, that of being the first beheaded," murmured the
inexorable abbe.

"Were truffles dear before the Revolution, prefet?" said De Beauvais,
with a half-impertinent air of simplicity.

"No, sir; nothing was dear save the King's favor."

"Which could also be had for paying for," quoth the abbe.

"The 'Moniteur' of this evening, gentlemen," said the waiter, entering
with the paper, whose publication had been delayed some two hours beyond
the usual period.

"Ah, let us see what we have here," said De Beauvais, opening the
journal and reading aloud: "'Greneral Espinasse is appointed to the
command of the fourth corps, stationed at Lille; and Major-General
Lannes to the fortress of Montreil, vacant by--' No matter,--here it is.
'Does the English government suppose that France is one of her Indian
possessions, without the means to declare her wrongs or the power to
avenge them? Can they believe that rights are not reciprocal, and that
the observance of one contracting party involves nothing on the part of
the other?'"

"There, there, De Beauvais; don't worry us with that tiresome nonsense."

"'Or,' continued the marquis, still reading aloud, 'do they presume to
say that we shall issue no commercial instructions to our agents
abroad lest English susceptibility should be wounded by any prospect