He was seized with lawful indignation against his own ambitions, against the lack of energy that prevented him from sweeping away all obstacles,—­men, and routine,—­and he recalled with afflicting bitterness his entry on public life, in the blaze of divine light, and his dreams, his poor noble dreams!  “A great minister!  I will be a great minister!”

“Ah! yes, indeed! one is a minister, that is all!  And that is enough!  It is often too much!  We shall see indeed what he will do, that Granet who ought to do so much!”

Vaudrey laughed nervously.

“What he will do?  Nothing!  Nothing!  Still nothing!  That is very easy!  To do anything, one should be a great man and not a politician captivated with the idea of reaching the summit of power.  Ah! parbleu! to be a great man!  ‘That is the question.’”

He grew very excited over the proud rebellion of his old faith and shattered hopes against the negative success he had obtained.  Besides, there was no reason for giving up the struggle.  There was a council to be held at the Elysee.  He went there, but at this moment of disgust, disgust of everything and himself, this palace like all the rest, seemed to him to be gloomy and mean.  An usher in black coat and white cravat, wearing a chain around his neck, wandered up and down the antechamber, according to custom, his shoes covered with the dust from the carpet trodden upon by so many people, either applicants or functionaries.  The gaslight burning in broad day as in the offices in London was reflected on the cold walls that shone like marble.  Doors ornamented with gilt nails and round, ivory knobs and without locks, were noiselessly swinging to and fro.  Wearied office-seekers with tired countenances were spread out upon the garnet-colored velvet chairs, which were like those of a middle-class, furnished house.

From time to time, the tiresome silence was broken by the sound of near or distant electric bells.  Vaudrey, who arrived before his colleagues, studiously contemplated the surroundings ironically.  An estafette, a gendarme, arrived with a telegram; the usher signed a receipt for it.  That was all the life that animated this silent palace.  A man with a military air, tall, handsome and in tightly-buttoned frock-coat, passed and saluted the President of the Council; then, Jouvenet, the Prefect of Police, looking like a notary’s senior clerk, his abundant black hair plastered on his head, a large, black portfolio under his arm, approached the minister and bowed.  Vaudrey, having Lissac in mind, returned his salutation coldly.

“I will speak to you presently, Monsieur le Prefet.”

“Good!  Monsieur le Ministre!”

In spite of the foot-soldier and the Parisian guard on duty at the door of the palace, all that now seemed to Vaudrey to lack official solemnity, and resembled rather a temporary and melancholy occupation.

“Bah!  And if I should never set my foot in this place again,” he thought, as he remembered Granet’s interpellation, “what would it matter to me?”