"
"A rabid Bonapartist!"
"So is every grenadier and every trooper of the army, as your Excellency
well knows. And the individuality of General Feraud can have no more
weight than that of any casual grenadier. He is a man of no mental
grasp, of no capacity whatever. It is inconceivable that he should ever
have any influence."
"He has a well-hung tongue, though," interjected Fouche.
"Noisy, I admit, but not dangerous."
"I will not dispute with you. I know next to nothing of him. Hardly his
name, in fact."
"And yet your Excellency has the presidency of the Commission charged
by the king to point out those who were to be tried," said General
D'Hubert, with an emphasis which did not miss the minister's ear.
"Yes, General," he said, walking away into the dark part of the vast
room, and throwing himself into a deep armchair that swallowed him up,
all but the soft gleam of gold embroideries and the pallid patch of the
face--"yes, General. Take this chair there."
General D'Hubert sat down.
"Yes, General," continued the arch-master in the arts of intrigue
and betrayals, whose duplicity, as if at times intolerable to his
self-knowledge, found relief in bursts of cynical openness.
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