Vive Vaudrey!  Vive Vaudrey! The general, at least, varied his effects.  He grumbled and wrung his hands, and on the day of the inauguration of the statue of a certain Monsieur Valbonnans, a former deputy and celebrated glove manufacturer,—­also the glory of the country,—­Vaudrey heard the soldier murmur from morning till night, with a movement of his jaw that made his imperial jerk:  “I love bronze!  I love bronze!” with a persistency that stupefied the minister.

This was, perhaps, the only recollection of a cheerful nature that Vaudrey retained of his trips in Isere.  This eternal murmuring of the general:  I love bronze!  I love bronze! had awakened him, and he gayly asked himself what devilish sort of appetite that soldier had who continually repeated his phrase in a ravenous tone.  Seated beside him on the platform, while the glee-club sung an elegy in honor of the late Monsieur Valbonnans, which was composed for the occasion by an amateur of the town: 

Monsieur Valbonnans’ praise let’s chant, yes, chant! 
His gloves the best, as all must grant,
The best extant!

while the flourish of trumpets took up the refrain and the firemen unveiled, amid loud acclamations, the statue of Monsieur Valbonnans, which bore these words on the pedestal:  To the Inventor, the Patriot, the Merchant; while, too, the prefect still poured in Vaudrey’s left ear his inexhaustible observations:  the glove trade, the glory of Isere; the progress, the interest, the greatness of the department, the minister who—­the minister whom—­(Vive Vaudrey!) Sulpice still heard, even amid the acclamations, the mechanical rumbling of the general’s voice, repeating, reasserting, rehearsing:  “I love bronze!  I love bronze!”

On the evening of the banquet, the minister at length obtained an explanation of this extraordinary affection.  The general rose, grasping his glass as if he would shiver it, and while the parfait overflowed on to the plates, he cried in a hoarse voice, as if he were at the head of his division: 

“I love bronze—­I love bronze—­because it serves for the erection of statues and the casting of cannon.  I love bronze because its voice wins battles, the artillery being to-day the superior branch, although the cavalry is the most chivalrous!  I love bronze because it is the image of the heart of the soldier, and I should like to see in our country an army of men of bronze who—­whom—­”

He became confused and muddled, and rolled his white eyes about in his purpled face and to close his observations brandished his glass as if it had been his sword, and amid a frenzy of applause from the guests, he valiantly howled:  “I love bronze!  I love bronze!”

Vaudrey could scarcely prevent himself from laughing hysterically, in spite of his ministerial dignity, and when he returned to Grenoble, his carriage full of the flowers that they had showered on him, he could only answer to Adrienne, who asked him if he had spoken well, if it had been a fine affair, by throwing his bouquets on the floor and saying: