d years in France, in Italy, in
England--thanks to that detestable Gladstone, of whom pride has made a
second Nebuchadnezzar. It is like Russia, your society; according to the
only decent words of the obscene Diderot, 'rotten before mature!' Come,
will you go?"

"You are mistaken," replied the writer, "in thinking that. I do not love
your old France, but that does not prevent me from enjoying the new. One
can like wine and champagne at the same time. But I am not at liberty. I
must visit the exposition at Palais Castagna this morning."

"You will not do that," exclaimed impetuous Montfanon, whose severe face
again expressed one of those contrarieties which caused it to brighten
when he was with one of whom he was fond as he was of Dorsenne. "You
would not have gone to see the King assassinated in '93? The selling at
auction of the old dwelling of Pope Urban VII is almost as tragical! It
is the beginning of the agony of what was Roman nobility. I know. They
deserve it all, since they were not killed to the last man on the steps
of the Vatican when the Italians took the city. We should have done
it, we who had no popes among our grand-uncles, if we had not been busy
fighting elsewhere. But it is none the less pitiful to see the hammer of
the appraisers raised above a palace with which is connected centuries
of history. Upon my life, if I were Prince d'Ardea--if I had inherited
the blood, the house, the titles of the Castagnas, and if I thought I
should leave nothing behind me of that which my fathers had amassed--I
swear to you, Dorsenne, I should die of grief. And if you recall the
fact that the unhappy youth is a spoiled child of eight-and-twenty,
surrounded by flatterers, without parents, without friends, without
counsellors, that he risked his patrimony on the Bourse among thieves of
the integrity of Monsieur Hafner, that all the wealth collected by that
succession of popes, of cardinals, of warriors, of diplomatists,
has served to enrich ignoble men, you would think the occurrence too
lamentable to have any share in it, even as a spectator. Come, I will
take you to Saint-Claude."

"I assure you I am expected," replied Dorsenne, disengaging his arm,
which his despotic friend had already seized. "It is very strange that I
should meet you on the way, having the rendezvous I have. I, who dote
on contrasts, shall not have lost my morning. Have you the patience to
listen to the enumeration of the persons whom I shall joi