So that when it became the duty of the mayor to select the members of the dramatic custom-house, of which he was now the head, he immediately thought of Phellion.  As for the great citizen, he felt, on the day when a post was offered to him in that august tribunal, that a crown of gold had been placed upon his brow.

It will be well understood that it was not lightly, nor without having deeply meditated, that a man of Phellion’s solemnity had accepted the high and sacred mission which was offered to him.  He said within himself that he was called upon to exercise the functions of a magistracy, a priestly office.

“To judge of men,” he replied to Minard, who was much surprised at his hesitation, “is an alarming task, but to judge of minds!—­who can believe himself equal to such a mission?”

Once more the family—­that rock on which the firmest resolutions split —­had threatened to infringe on the domain of his conscience.  The thought of boxes and tickets of which the future member of the committee could dispose in favor of his own kin had excited in the household so eager a ferment that his freedom of decision seemed for a moment in danger.  But, happily, Brutus was able to decide himself in the same direction along which a positive uprising of the whole Phellionian tribe intended to push him.  From the observations of Barniol, his son-in-law, and also by his own personal inspiration, he became persuaded that by his vote, always given to works of irreproachable morality, and by his firm determination to bar the way to all plays that mothers of families could not take their daughters to witness, he was called upon to render the most signal services to morals and public order.  Phellion, to use his own expression, had therefore become a member of the areopagus presided over by Minard, and—­still speaking as he spoke—­he was issuing from the exercise of his functions, which were both delicate and interesting, when the conversation we are about to report took place.  A knowledge of this conversation is necessary to an understanding of the ulterior events of this history, and it will also serve to put into relief the envious insight which is one of the most marked traits of the bourgeois character.

The session of the committee had been extremely stormy.  On the subject of a tragedy entitled, “The Death of Hercules,” the classic party and the romantic party, whom the mayor had carefully balanced in the composition of his committee, had nearly approached the point of tearing each other’s hair out.  Twice Phellion had risen to speak, and his hearers were astonished at the quantity of metaphors the speech of a major of the National Guard could contain when his literary convictions were imperilled.  As the result of a vote, victory remained with the opinions of which Phellion was the eloquent organ.  It was while descending the stairway of the theatre with Minard that he remarked:—­

“We have done a good work this day.  ‘The Death of Hercules’ reminded me of ‘The Death of Hector,’ by the late Luce de Lancival; the work we have just accepted sparkles with sublime verses.”