Why should not he, who
can speak so well, be member for the town, instead of that stammering
squire? But his reason has soon silenced the querulous murmur. He
hastens his step,--he is at home! And there, in the neat-furnished
drawing-room, which looks on the garden behind, hisses the welcoming
tea-urn; and the piano is open, and there is a packet of new books on
the table; and, best of all, there is the glad face of the sweet English
wife. The happy scene was characteristic of the time, just when the
simpler and more innocent luxuries of the higher class spread, not to
spoil, but refine the middle. The dress, air, mien, movements of the
young couple; the unassuming, suppressed, sober elegance of the house;
the flower-garden, the books, and the music, evidences of cultivated
taste, not signals of display,--all bespoke the gentle fusion of ranks
before rude and uneducated wealth, made in looms and lucky hits, rushed
in to separate forever the gentleman from the parvenu.

Spring smiles over Paris, over the spires of Notre Dame and the crowded
alleys of the Tuileries, over thousands and thousands eager, joyous,
aspiring, reckless,--the New Race of France, bound to one man's destiny,
children of glory and of carnage, whose blood the wolf and the vulture
scent, hungry, from afar!

The conspiracy against the life of the First Consul has been detected
and defeated. Pichegru is in prison, George Cadoudal awaits his trial,
the Duc d'Enghien sleeps in his bloody grave; the imperial crown is
prepared for the great soldier, and the great soldier's creatures
bask in the noonday sun. Olivier Dalibard is in high and lucrative
employment; his rise is ascribed to his talents, his opinions. No
service connected with the detection of the conspiracy is traced or
traceable by the public eye. If such exist, it is known but to those who
have no desire to reveal it. The old apartments are retained, but they
are no longer dreary and comfortless and deserted. They are gay with
draperies and ormolu and mirrors; and Madame Dalibard has her nights of
reception, and Monsieur Dalibard has already his troops of clients. In
that gigantic concentration of egotism which under Napoleon is called
the State, Dalibard has found his place. He has served to swell the
power of the unit, and the cipher gains importance by its position in
the sum.

Jean Bellanger is no more. He died, not suddenly, and yet of some quick
disease,--nervous exhaustion; his schemes,