Sit down and tell me all your
plans."
He was about to comply, when, glancing out of the window, she saw the old
sergeant, now "General Lagroin," and Parpon hastening up the walk. Parpon
ambled comfortably beside the old man, who seemed ten years younger than
he had done the day before.
"Your army and cabinet, monseigneur!" she said with a pretty, mocking
gesture of salutation.
He glanced at her reprovingly. "My General and my Minister; as brave a
soldier and as able a counsellor as ever prince had. Madame," he added,
"they only are farceurs who do not dare, and have not wisdom. My General
has scars from Auerstadt, Austerlitz, and Waterloo; my Minister is
feared--in Pontiac. Was he not the trusted friend of the Grand Seigneur,
as he was called here, the father of your Monseiur De la Riviere? Has he
yet erred in advising me? Have we yet failed? Madame," he added, a little
rhetorically, "as we have begun, so will we end, true to our principles,
and--"
"And gentlemen of the king," she said provokingly, urging him on.
"Pardon, gentlemen of the Empire, madame, as time and our lives will
prove. . . . Madame, I thank you for your violets of Sunday last.
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