n his
endeavours to summarise Florent's and Charvet's political and social
systems; and could only talk about the disregard shown to principles,
the accession of the democracy to power, and the regeneration of
society, in such a strange tangled way that Lisa shrugged her shoulders,
quite unable to understand him. At last, however, he extricated himself
from his difficulties by declaring that the Empire was the reign of
licentiousness, swindling finance, and highway robbery. And, recalling
an expression of Logre's he added: "We are the prey of a band of
adventurers, who are pillaging, violating, and assassinating France.
We'll have no more of them."

Lisa, however, still shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, and is that all you have got to say?" she asked with perfect
coolness. "What has all that got to do with me? Even supposing it were
true, what then? Have I ever advised you to practise dishonest courses?
Have I ever prompted you to dishonour your acceptances, or cheat your
customers, or pile up money by fraudulent practices? Really, you'll end
by making me quite angry! We are honest folks, and we don't pillage or
assassinate anybody. That's quite sufficient. What other folks do is no
concern of ours. If they choose to be rogues it's their affair."

She looked quite majestic and triumphant; and again pacing the room,
drawing herself up to her full height, she resumed: "A pretty notion
it is that people are to let their business go to rack and ruin just to
please those who are penniless. For my part, I'm in favour of making hay
while the sun shines, and supporting a Government which promotes trade.
If it does do dishonourable things, I prefer to know nothing about them.
I know that I myself commit none, and that no one in the neighbourhood
can point a finger at me. It's only fools who go tilting at windmills.
At the time of the last elections, you remember, Gavard said that the
Emperor's candidate had been bankrupt, and was mixed up in all sorts of
scandalous matters. Well, perhaps that was true, I don't deny it; but
all the same, you acted wisely in voting for him, for all that was not
in question; you were not asked to lend the man any money or to transact
any business with him, but merely to show the Government that you were
pleased with the prosperity of the pork trade."

At this moment Quenu called to mind a sentence of Charvet's, asserting
that "the bloated bourgeois, the sleek shopkeepers, who backed up that
Gover