"But that singular being, to whom we have just been listening, and whose song I shall hear to-night in my dreams--can she be a politician, a republican? I have never seen a countenance more likely to be contemptuous of the _canaille_!" "You are perfectly in the right. She has a sphere of her own, which has no more to do with our world than if she lived in the evening-star. She exists simply to enjoy homage, and to reward it, as you have seen, by a song or a smile; yet she has been on the verge of the scaffold. Some of our most powerful political characters are contending for her influence, her fortune, or her hand; and whether the contest will end in raising M. Tallien to the head of the Republic, or extinguishing him within the week, is a question which chance alone can decide.--She may yet be a queen." "She seems fitter to be a Circe, or a Calypso. Or if a queen, she would be a Cleopatra." "No," said Elnathan, with the only laugh which I had seen on his solemn visage during the night. "She has known too much of courts to endure royalty. She reigns as the widow of M. de Fontenai. If Tallien falls, she will have the power of choosing from all his successors. When old age comes at last, and conquests are hopeless, she will turn _devote_, fly to her native Spain, abjure the face of man, spend her money on wax-dolls and cockle-shells; and after being worshipped by the multitude as a saint, and panegyrized by the monks as a miracle, will die with her face turned to Paris after all, as good Mussulmen send their last breath in the direction of Mecca." We now plunged into the centre of a circle of men in military costume, full of the war, and criticising Dumourier's campaign with the utmost severity. As I listened; with some surprise at the multiplicity of errors which the most successful general of France had contrived to squeeze into a single month of operations, I observed a man, of a pale thin visage, like one suffering from ill health or excessive mental toil, but of a singularly intellectual expression; standing at a slight distance from the group of tacticians with a quiet smile. "Let me have the honour of presenting M. Marston to the minister at war," was my introduction to the celebrated Carnot; with whom Elnathan seemed to be on peculiar terms of intimacy. The minister entered at once, and good-humouredly, into conversation. "You must not think our favourite general," said he, "altogether the military novice which those gentlemen of the National Guard have decided him to be. I feel an additional interest in the question, because I had a little official battle to fight to place him at the head of the army of Flanders. But I saw that he had military talent, and that, with a republic, cancels all sins." I made some passing remark on the idleness of disputing the ability of an officer who answered cavils by conquest, observing, that the only rational altar raised by the Romans, a people of warriors, was to "Good Fortune."