e Terror--the
one method by which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience.
The priest and the king--that means you, and me, and the Princess
my neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people
personified. There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to your
party, you that might be its Scylla if you had the slightest ambition
that way. I know nothing about politics myself; I argue from my own
feelings; but still I know enough to guess that society would
be overturned if people were always calling its foundations in
question----"

"If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry for
you," broke in Montriveau. "The Restoration, madam, ought to say, like
Catherine de Medici, when she heard that the battle of Dreux was lost,
'Very well; now we will go to the meeting-house.' Now 1815 was your
battle of Dreux. Like the royal power of those days, you won in
fact, while you lost in right. Political Protestantism has gained an
ascendancy over people's minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict
of Nantes; or if, when it is issued, you publish a Revocation; if you
should one day be accused and convicted of repudiating the Charter,
which is simply a pledge given to maintain the interests established
under the Republic, then the Revolution will rise again, terrible in her
strength, and strike but a single blow. It will not be the Revolution
that will go into exile; she is the very soil of France. Men die, but
people's interests do not die. ... Eh, great Heavens! what are France
and the crown and rightful sovereigns, and the whole world besides, to
us? Idle words compared with my happiness. Let them reign or be hurled
from the throne, little do I care. Where am I now?"

"In the Duchesse de Langeais' boudoir, my friend."

"No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with my dear
Antoinette."

"Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are," she said, laughing
and pushing him back, gently however.

"So you have never loved me," he retorted, and anger flashed in
lightning from his eyes.

"No, dear"; but the "No" was equivalent to "Yes."

"I am a great ass," he said, kissing her hands. The terrible queen was a
woman once more.--"Antoinette," he went on, laying his head on her feet,
"you are too chastely tender to speak of our happiness to anyone in this
world."

"Oh!" she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful spring,
"you are a great simpleton." And withou