“If that idiot Sulpice were not my friend, I would make love to her.  Besides,” he said to himself, as he looked at Adrienne’s lovely, limpid eyes, “I should fail; there are some lakes whose tranquillity cannot be disturbed.”

Adrienne, pleased to have him beside her, enquired of him the names of the guests.  On the left of Madame Gerson sat a little, broad-backed man, with black hair pasted over his temples, long leg-of-mutton whiskers decorating his bright-colored cheeks, and a keen eye:  he was Monsieur Jouvenet, formerly an advocate; to-day Prefect of Police.

Senator Crepeau sat further away.  He was a fat manufacturer, who talked about alimentary products and politics.  In the Analytical Table of the Accounts of the Sittings of the Senate, his name shone brilliantly, with the following as his record:  “CREPEAU, of L’Ain, Life Senator—­Apologizes for his absence—­8 January—.  Apologizes for his absence—­20 February—.  Member of a commission—­Journal Officiel, p. 1441.  Apologizes for not being able to take part in the labors of the commission—­4 March—.  Apologizes for his absence—­20 March—.  Asks for leave of absence—­5 April—.”  Such were his services during the ordinary work of that year.  Monsieur Crepeau—­of L’Ain—­had earned the right to take a rest.

“He eats very heartily,” said Lissac.  “His appetite is better than his eloquence.”

Next to Crepeau was another legislator, Henri de Prangins, a publicist, an old, wrinkled, stooping, dissatisfied grumbler.

“Ah! that is Monsieur de Prangins,” said Adrienne, “I have heard much about him.”

“He is a typical character,” Lissac said, with a smile.  “You know Granet, the gentleman who will become a minister; well, Prangins is the gentleman who would be a minister, but who never will be!  Moreover, he is five hundred times more remarkable than a hundred others who have been in office ten times, for what reason cannot be said.”

For nearly half a century Prangins, the old political wheel-horse, had plotted and jockeyed in politics, set up and overthrown ministries, piled up review articles on newspaper articles, contradiction on contradiction, page on page, spoiled cartloads of paper in his vocation of daily or fortnightly howler, and withal he was applauded, rich and popular, famous and surrounded by flatterers, knife-and-fork companions, without friends but not wanting clients, as he had made and spoiled reputations, ministers, governments, and although he well knew the vanity and nothingness of power, he aspired to secure that vain booty, oft alleging, with bitter enviousness of authority and impatient of tyranny, that to enjoy popularity uninterruptedly was not worth a quarter of an hour of power, approaching with greedy eagerness the desired lot, yet seeing it inevitably, eternally, relentlessly escape and recede from him, plucked from his grasp as it were, like a shred of flesh from the