All the glances, all the whisperings of the women, the frowns of his enemies, the cringing attitudes of dandified hangers-on, were making Vaudrey feel very uncomfortable, when to his great relief he suddenly observed coming towards him, peering hither and thither through his monocle, evidently in search of some one, Guy de Lissac, who immediately on catching sight of Vaudrey came towards him, greeting him with evident cordiality, tinged, however, with a proper reserve.

Sulpice was not long in breaking through this reserve.  He hurried up to Guy, and seizing him by the hand, cried gayly: 

“Do you know that I have been expecting this visit!  You are the only one of my friends who has not yet congratulated me!”

“You know, my dear Minister,” returned Guy in the same tone, “that it is really not such a great piece of luck to be made Minister that every one of your friends should be expected to fall upon your neck, crying bravo!  You have mounted up to the capitol, but after all, the capitol is not such a very cheerful place, that I should illuminate a giorno.  I am happy, however, if you are.  I congratulate you, if you wash your hands of it, and that is all.”

“You and my old friend Ramel,” answered Sulpice, “are the two most original men that I know.”

“With this difference however, Ramel is a Puritan, an ancient, a man of marble, and I am a boulevardier and a skeptic.  He is a man of bronze—­your Ramel!  And your friend Lissac of simili-bronze!  The proof of it is that I have been seeking you for half the evening to ask you to do me a favor.”

“What favor, my dear fellow?” cried Vaudrey, his face lighting up with joy.  “Anything in the world to please you.”

“I was in Madame Marsy’s box,—­you do not know Madame Marsy?  She is a great admirer of yours and makes a point to applaud you in the Chamber.  She has prayed for your advent.  She saw you in the manager’s box a while ago, and she has asked me to present you to her, or rather, to present her to you, for I presume for your Excellency the ceremony is modified.”

“Madame Marsy!” said Vaudrey.  “Is she not an artist’s widow?  Her salon is a political centre, is it not?”

“Exactly.  A recent salon opened in opposition to that of Madame Evan.  An Athenian Republic!  You do not object to that?”

“On the contrary!  A republic cannot be founded without the aid of women.”

“Ah!” cried Lissac, laughing.  “Politics and honors have not changed you, I see.”

“Changed me?  With the exception that I have twenty years over my head, and alas! not so much hair as I had then upon it, I am the same as I was in 1860.”

“Hotel Racine!  Rue Racine!” said Lissac.  “In those days, I dreamed of being Musset, I a gourmand, and what have I become?  A spectator, a trifler, a Parisian, a rolling stone.—­Nothing.  And you who dreamed of being a second Barnave, Vergniaud or Barbaroux, your dream is realized.”