“But I shall die of shame in listening to the ministerial infamies; I shall feel that they are cutting the throat of a man whom two words from me could save.”

“True,” said Monsieur de Camps, “and a man, too, who has done you a vast service.  But you must choose:  do you prefer to bring hell into your home, and exasperate the unhealthy condition of your husband’s mind?”

“Listen to me, dearest,” said Madame de Camps.  “Tell Monsieur de l’Estorade that I want to go to this session, and ask him for a permit; don’t yield the point to any objections.  I shall then be there to take care of you, and perhaps protect you from yourself.”

“I did not dare ask it of you,” replied Madame de l’Estorade.  “We don’t usually invite friends to see us commit bad actions; but since you are so kind as to offer, I can truly say I shall be less wretched if you are with me.  Now good-bye; I don’t want my husband to find me out when he comes home.  He is dining with Monsieur de Rastignac, where, no doubt, they are plotting for to-morrow.”

“Yes, go; and I will write you a note in the course of an hour, as if I had not seen you, asking you to get me a permit for to-morrow’s session, which I am told will be very interesting.”

“To be reduced to conspiracy!” cried Madame de l’Estorade, kissing her friend.

“My dear love,” said Madame de Camps, “they say the life of a Christian is a struggle, but that of a woman married in a certain way is a pitched battle.  Have patience and courage.”

So saying, the two friends separated.

The next day, about two o’clock, Madame de l’Estorade, accompanied by her husband and Madame Octave de Camps, took their places in the gallery reserved for the members of the peerage.  She seemed ill, and answered languidly the bows and salutations that were addressed to her from all parts of the Chamber.  Madame de Camps, who was present for the first time in the parliamentary precincts, made two observations:  first, she objected strongly to the slovenly costume of a great many of the “honorable gentlemen”; and she was also amazed at the number of bald heads she looked down upon from the gallery.  Monsieur de l’Estorade took pains to point out to her all the notabilities present:  first, the great men whom we need not mention, because their names are in everybody’s memory; next, the poet Canalis, whose air she thought Olympian; d’Arthez, who pleased her by his modesty and absence of assumption; Vinet, of whom she remarked that he was like a viper in spectacles; Victorin Hulot, a noted orator of the Left Centre.  It was some time before she could accustom herself to the hum of the various conversations, which seemed to her like the buzzing of bees around their hive; but the thing that most amazed her was the general aspect of this assemblage of legislators, where a singular laisser-aller and a total absence of dignity would never have led her to suppose she was in the hall of the representatives of a great people.