His Excellency the Minister

girl and the innate devotion of a woman. She was an orphan with a considerable fortune, but although Sulpice had only moderate resources, he had scarcely thou

in society, had made Sulpice acquainted with his wife; but the sight of the pretty blonde-so sweet and gentle-the childlike timidity of this young girl, something rather pensive in the confiding smile of this blooming creature of eighteen summers, had won him completely. He

e small, and spelled out as he might have lisped a prayer, the four letters: papa. Alone in this little town of Grenoble, for which he had left his native villag

th. The great white drawing-room with its wainscotings of the time of Louis XVI., which opened out upon a flight of steps leading down into a terraced garden; the portraits of obscure ancestors: lawyers in powdered wigs and wearing the robes of the members of the Third estate, fat and rosy with double chins resting upon their

agged kitchen, where they sat up at nights telling stories, the chamber above it, the bed with its heavy serge curtains, where he lay-sometimes shaking with terror-all alone, adjoining the room once occupied by his father, and the moonlight shining through the tall old trees i

e to send him away,-just as during winter she had plunged him into cold water-to the Lyceum at Gr

ck again to school,-to make the m

summer; how delightful to stretch one's self out at the foot of the cliffs or on a grassy slope with a book, pausing now and then to indulge in day-dreams or glance up at the fleecy clouds floating in the blue sky above his head and watch them gath

limitless and bright as the azure sky above him, the inspiration of devotion, love and poetry. He asked himself whether he should be a missionary or a representative of th

o one of his comrades at college, Guy de Lissac, the son

day or other, and there are so

tened materially by his mother's almost excessive care, it had left, as i

staircase with its heavy balusters, and he recalled at the same moment, the landscape with its living figures, the spotted, steel-colored guinea-fowl screaming from the branches of the elms, the vineyard hands returning from work, to trample with bare feet the great clusters of grapes piled up in the wine-vat in the

ields, to their farms, where the youths soon forget all they may have learned of the Code or the Codex and lead the healthy, hardy life of the country. Good, well-built fellows, their chests enlarged by their daily exercise, their

to give up his broad acres-a fortune in themselves-to Sulpice, if his nephew wou

ntimentality! If he cultivates that grain, m

What my poor Raymond had not time to become, his c

the uncle, "but he s

-Laurent and installed her in the town with himself, where he began the practice of law and attracted everybody's attention

t, had imbibed from his mother, as well as from his father's writings and books, and from the Encyclop?dia that Raymond Vaudrey had interlined with notes and reflections, not merely traditional information, but also, so to speak, the baptism of liberty. He had lived in the feverish days of the past eighty years, through his reading of the Gazette Nationale of those stormy days. The speeches that he found in those pages-speeches that still burn

just as the leaves of the trees fly before the winds of October. And besides, the dear woman herself was in sympathy wit

populace who knew how generous he was, and by the middle-class who regarded him as a prudent man, hence the Februa

this event, and to be dazzled by t

tour. The day before he had made a speech in a wineshop to an audience of peasants, who listened, open-mouthed, but withal suspicious, examining their candidate as they would

oups were gathered, peaceful folk; a gendarme paced slowly to and fro, and bulletins littered the muddy thoroughfare. But there was no excitement. Nothing more. Not even a quickened pulse-beat was felt by those stolid men upon whose vot

d, and filled with uproar! With what a fearfully fast-beating heart he saw the rapidly swelling number of ballots cast for him! Dispatches came, a

quickly gathered about Vaudrey. It already seemed to him tha

ers, and hurriedly said: "You know I am not one to ask much of you, to ask anything of y

solicitor, who, in the triumph of a great popular cause, saw only a means of self-advancement, of securing an appointment

im home that evening

be signed, and what a peace! Must he, alas! append his signature to a document devoted to the dismemberment of h

d arose with the gray dawn of Fe

ged, its bare trees and box-wood borders, that he had often gazed upon. Some nuns in their black robes p

ulpice was in haste, however, to see it once more, to pass with head aloft beneath the garrets where he had once dreamed as a student, fagging and striving to get knowledge. How often he would regret that convent garden, those familiar flower-b

ood-natured, distinguished young man whom everybody at Grenoble, not excepting his political adversaries, admired and spoke well of. With large, brilliant, black eyes lighting up a thin, fair face, a full beard, a high forehead with a deep furrow between the eyebrows, giving to his usually wandering, keen and restless glance a somewhat contemplative e

orgot, amid the idyllic scenes of domestic life, the storms of Versailles, the political troubles, forebodings as to the future, all anxieties of

owd of relatives and friends in festive attire, the stamping of the horses' feet before the great open gate, the neighbors standing at the windows, and the little street-boys scuffling upon the pavement, all the joyous bustle of

e expressed the happy, surprised, and sweetly anxi

! He, somewhat bored by the company that surrounded them, cast an involuntary glance at a mirror hanging opposite and decided that he looked awkward a

extended to him. It was a great event in Grenoble when the leader of the Liberal Party, who headed the list at the last election, was seen being married like a believing bourgeois. The organ pealed forth its tender vibrations, some Christmas anthem, mysterious and tremulous, like an alleluia sounding thro

at once perfumed and dazzling: the perfumes of flowers, the play of light, the greetings of t

rough intense work came to the front, living at Paris just as he did in the province, having his books brought from there to his apartment in the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, close to the railroad that he took every morning w

seclusion, caring only for the existence of her husband, his work, and his speeches that he prepared with so much courageous l

ining these old books. She felt terribly anxious when Vaudrey had to make a speech from the tribune. She dared not go to hear him, but knowing that he was to speak, she had not the courage to remain at home. Anxiously she

possession of her. Then suddenly she heard a storm of applause that seemed like an outburst of sympathy. Hands were clapped, voices applauded. She half raised herself, and leaning upon the rail of the gallery, saw Sulpice between the crowded heads, towering above the immense audience, radiant and calm, stand

adored him, that he was her pride, even as she was his joy! She would like to have f

of this nervous man whom everything threw into a feverish excitement, this grand man, as they called him at Grenoble, who was for

progress, not a single step forward in the direction of his goal. Since the war, the years had passed for him as well as for those of his generation, with confusing rapidity, and suddenly,

had acquired within his party, within the circle of his friends, his dream was to reach still higher, he was

othed him, brought his dreams back to the region of the real, terrified at times by his

her for having clipped

her the fans of your windmills

depths of the timid creature's lovely blue eyes, causing

lthough she was totally ignorant of political intrigues, she was by virtue of the mere instinct of love, his

unlimited candor of a poor creature who has but

eloved, it seemed to him, nevertheless, that his life lacked something. He would have liked a child, a son to bring up, a domestic tie, since political conditions prevented him from accomplishing a civic duty. Ah! yes, a son, a being to moul

o the quiet solitude of the house of her guardian, she, when at Paris, in her husband's study, arranging his books, his papers, his legislative plans and rep

s of a startling political cha

ning at one and the same tim

last speech on domestic policy had more than ever brought him into prominence and

e the morning, be a ministe

should be intrusted with one of the most important portfolios, that of the Interior or of Foreign Affairs, the lesser portfolios being considered those of Public

nne while eating his dinner me

is coterie at eight o'clock. I

nd for so long a time, that she was already compelled to live in such solitude that the secluded creature wondered if in future she would not be condemned to still greater isolatio

ringing out its clear note in

, who handed a letter to Vaudrey, bearing on

cognized t

m Collard

read this letter, which Sulpice promptly hand

done!

e turne

he was the head had succeeded. The President awaited at the élysée the arri

Adrienne, now ove

was mechanically searching for somethi

id. "My overcoa

sformed. All his being, in fact, expressed complete satisfaction. He embraced Adrienne almost frantically, kissed

tisfying his astonished curiosity in the greenroom of the ballet. He entered office, animated by all the good purposes inspire

smiling, "but nothing is easier than to be a great m

" replied his friend Gra

eins of power!-If others wrecked the hopes of their friends, i

d do himself! Not to-morrow eit

to the feverish and glorious zeal of a neophyte, he was a little surprised to encounter, at the very outset, the obstinate resi

! Patience would overcome all.

lied Granet, who was

thout haughtiness, and now, however she might love her domestic life, it was incumbent upon her to pass more of her time in society than formerly, to show herself, as S

tering murmur of admiration and good-natured curiosit

me Va

nister'

arm

te y

at prov

he more at

e, as fresh

accepted a compliment as timidly as a boarding-school miss receives a prize. They forgave her for retaining her rosy cheeks because of her white and exqui

s; the entrance of a fashionable woman into a salon bei

luxurious appointments, she more than once regretted the home in the Chaussée-d'Antin, where they enjoyed-but too rarely-a renewal of the cherished solitude of the first months of their union, the familiar chats of the Grenoble da

place suggests to me? W

red; "we are at a hotel, but it is the h

my dear, that i

t I am made of. You shall see, Adrienne, you sh

in a