“It is rather too strong.  What do you want?—­It is not even moral, but it has character! And in art, after the moral idea comes character! Ah! bless me! character, that is something!—­Otherwise, I disapprove.  It is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal.  I defy you to symbolize that. Love Avenging Itself Against Love—­Jealousy Calling the Police to Its Aid in Order to Triumph over Dead Love! It is old, it lacks originality, it smacks of Prud’hon!—­The Correggio of the decollete!—­It is like Tassaert, it is of the sprightly kind!—­I would never paint so, that is what I say about it!”

Guy had no reply for this imperturbable moralist and he regretted that he had lost time in speaking to him.  But his uncontrollable rage choked him.  Enough remained however to show all his feelings to Vaudrey.

The minister was not in his cabinet.  A messenger asked Lissac if he would speak to Monsieur Warcolier, the Under Secretary of State.

“I, I,” then said a man who rose from the chair in which he had been sitting in the antechamber, “I should be glad to see Monsieur Warcolier—­Monsieur Eugene, you know.”

“Very well, Monsieur Eugene, I will announce you.”  Lissac explained that his visit was not official, he called on a personal matter.

“Is the minister in his apartments?”

“Yes, monsieur, but to-day, you know—­”

What was going on to-day, then?  Lissac had not noticed, in fact, that a marquee with red stripes was being erected at the entrance to the hotel, and that upholsterers were bringing in wagons benches covered with red velvet with which they were blocking the peristyle.  There was a reception at the ministry.

“That will not prevent Monsieur Vaudrey from seeing me,” he said.

One of the messengers opened the doors in front of him and conducted him to the floor above, where Monsieur le Ministre was then resting near the fire and glancing over the papers after breakfast.

He appeared pleased but a little astonished at seeing Lissac.

“Eh! my dear Guy, what a good idea!—­Have you arrived already for the soiree?  You received your invitation?”

“No,” answered Lissac, “I have received nothing, or if the invitation arrived, the agents of Monsieur Jouvenet have taken it away with many other things.”

“The agents! what agents?” asked the minister.

He had risen to receive Guy and remained standing in front of the fireplace looking at his friend, who questioned him with his glance to discover if Vaudrey could really be in ignorance as to such a matter.

“Ah, so! but,” said Lissac with trembling voice and in a tone of angry bitterness, “do you not know then, what takes place in Paris?”

“What is happening?” asked Sulpice, who had turned slightly pale.

“They arrest men for nothing, and keep them in close confinement for two days in order to have time to search their correspondence for a document that compromises certain persons.  It is very proper, no doubt; but that smacks too much of romanticism and the Bridge of Sighs.  It is very old-fashioned and worn-out.  I would not answer for your long employing such methods of government.”