General Baron D’Hubert was shown in suddenly without preliminaries.  In the dusk of the Minister’s cabinet, behind the forms of writing-desk, chairs, and tables, between two bunches of wax candles blazing in sconces, he beheld a figure in a gorgeous coat posturing before a tall mirror.  The old conventionnel Fouche, Senator of the Empire, traitor to every man, to every principle and motive of human conduct.  Duke of Otranto, and the wily artizan of the second Restoration, was trying the fit of a court suit in which his young and accomplished fiancee had declared her intention to have his portrait painted on porcelain.  It was a caprice, a charming fancy which the first Minister of Police of the second Restoration was anxious to gratify.  For that man, often compared in wiliness of conduct to a fox, but whose ethical side could be worthily symbolized by nothing less emphatic than a skunk, was as much possessed by his love as General D’Hubert himself.

Startled to be discovered thus by the blunder of a servant, he met this little vexation with the characteristic impudence which had served his turn so well in the endless intrigues of his self-seeking career.  Without altering his attitude a hair’s-breadth, one leg in a silk stocking advanced, his head twisted over his left shoulder, he called out calmly, “This way, General.  Pray approach.  Well?  I am all attention.”

While General D’Hubert, ill at ease as if one of his own little weaknesses had been exposed, presented his request as shortly as possible, the Duke of Otranto went on feeling the fit of his collar, settling the lapels before the glass, and buckling his back in an effort to behold the set of the gold embroidered coat-skirts behind.  His still face, his attentive eyes, could not have expressed a more complete interest in those matters if he had been alone.

“Exclude from the operations of the Special Court a certain Feraud, Gabriel Florian, General of brigade of the promotion of 1814?” he repeated, in a slightly wondering tone, and then turned away from the glass.  “Why exclude him precisely?”

“I am surprised that your Excellency, so competent in the evaluation of men of his time, should have thought worth while to have that name put down on the list.”

“A rabid Bonapartist!”

“So is every grenadier and every trooper of the army, as your Excellency well knows.  And the individuality of General Feraud can have no more weight than that of any casual grenadier.  He is a man of no mental grasp, of no capacity whatever.  It is inconceivable that he should ever have any influence.”

“He has a well-hung tongue, though,” interjected Fouche.

“Noisy, I admit, but not dangerous.”

“I will not dispute with you.  I know next to nothing of him.  Hardly his name, in fact.”

“And yet your Excellency has the presidency of the Commission charged by the king to point out those who were to be tried,” said General D’Hubert, with an emphasis which did not miss the minister’s ear.