France by
the foreign armies. According to Monsieur de la Billardiere, the
functionaries who represent the city of Paris should make it their duty,
each in his own sphere of influence, to celebrate the liberation of our
territory. Let us show a true patriotism which shall put these liberals,
these damned intriguers, to the blush; hein? Do you think I don't love
my country? I wish to show the liberals, my enemies, that to love the
king is to love France."

"Do you think you have got any enemies, my poor Birotteau?"

"Why, yes, wife, we have enemies. Half our friends in the quarter are
our enemies. They all say, 'Birotteau has had luck; Birotteau is a man
who came from nothing: yet here he is deputy-mayor; everything succeeds
with him.' Well, they are going to be finely surprised. You are the
first to be told that I am made a chevalier of the Legion of honor. The
king signed the order yesterday."

"Oh! then," said Madame Birotteau, much moved, "of course we must give
the ball, my good friend. But what have you done to merit the cross?"

"Yesterday, when Monsieur de la Billardiere told me the news," said
Birotteau, modestly, "I asked myself, as you do, what claims I had to
it; but I ended by seeing what they were, and in approving the action
of the government. In the first place, I am a royalist; I was wounded
at Saint-Roch in Vendemiaire: isn't it something to have borne arms
in those days for the good cause? Then, according to the merchants, I
exercised my judicial functions in a way to give general satisfaction. I
am now deputy-mayor. The king grants four crosses to the municipality of
Paris; the prefect, selecting among the deputies suitable persons to be
thus decorated, has placed my name first on the list. The king moreover
knows me: thanks to old Ragon. I furnish him with the only powder he is
willing to use; we alone possess the receipt of the late queen,--poor,
dear, august victim! The mayor vehemently supported me. So there it is.
If the king gives me the cross without my asking for it, it seems to me
that I cannot refuse it without failing in my duty to him. Did I seek to
be deputy-mayor? So, wife, since we are sailing before the wind, as
your uncle Pillerault says when he is jovial, I have decided to put the
household on a footing in conformity with our high position. If I can
become anything, I'll risk being whatever the good God wills that I
shall be,--sub-prefect, if such be my destiny. My wife, you are m