Baroness—­You are too complimentary:  your cause must be detestable.

Marquis—­If it was good I could win it for myself.

Baroness—­Come, tell me, tell me.

Marquis—­Well, then:  we must choose an orator to the Chamber for our Campaign against the University.  I want them to choose—­

Baroness—­Monsieur Marechal?

Marquis—­You are right.

Baroness—­Do you really think so, Marquis?  Monsieur Marechal?

Marquis—­Yes, I know.  But we don’t need a bolt of eloquence, since we’ll furnish the address.  Marechal reads well enough, I assure you.

Baroness—­We made him deputy on your recommendation.  That was a good deal.

Marquis—­Marechal is an excellent recruit.

Baroness—­So you say.

Marquis—­How disgusted you are!  An old subscriber to the Constitutionnel, a liberal, a Voltairean, who comes over to the enemy bag and baggage.  What would you have?  Monsieur Marechal is not a man, my dear:  it’s the stout bourgeoisie itself coming over to us.  I love this honest bourgeoisie, which hates the revolution, since there is no more to be gotten out of it; which wants to stem the tide which brought it, and make over a little feudal France to its own profit.  Let it draw our chestnuts from the fire if it wants to.  This pleasant sight makes me enjoy politics.  Long live Monsieur Marechal and his likes, bourgeois of the right divine.  Let us heap these precious allies with honor and glory until our triumph ships them off to their mills again.

Baroness—­Several of our deputies are birds of the same feather.  Why choose the least capable for orator?

Marquis—­It’s not a question of capacity.

Baroness—­You’re a warm patron of Monsieur Marechal!

Marquis—­I regard him as a kind of family protege.  His grandfather was farmer to mine.  I’m his daughter’s guardian.  These are bonds.

Baroness—­You don’t tell everything.

Marquis—­All that I know.

Baroness—­Then let me complete your information.  They say that in old times you fell in love with the first Madame Marechal.

Marquis—­I hope you don’t believe this silly story?

Baroness—­Faith, you do so much to please Monsieur Marechal—­

Marquis—­That it seems as if I must have injured him?  Good heavens!  Who is safe from malice?  Nobody.  Not even you, dear Baroness.

Baroness—­I’d like to know what they can say of me.

Marquis—­Foolish things that I certainly won’t repeat.

Baroness—­Then you believe them?

Marquis—­God forbid!  That your dead husband married his mother’s companion?  It made me so angry!

Baroness—­Too much honor for such wretched gossip.