"And you will be right," said Denis. "Nowhere will you find a love more profound, or hear truths more frankly spoken. You see, Vaudrey, the walls of the ministerial apartments are too thick. There, neither the noise of carriages nor the sound of street-cries is heard. I have passed a few days in a palace--in '48,--at the Tuileries, as a national guard: at the end of two hours, I heard nothing. The carpets, the curtains, stifled everything, and, believe me, a cannon might have been fired without my hearing anything more than an echo, much less could I hear the truth! Besides, people do not like to pronounce truth too loudly. They are afraid." "I swear to you that I will listen to everything," replied Sulpice, "and I will strive to understand everything. And since I have the power--" Denis Ramel shook his head: "Power? Ah! you will see if that is ever taken in any but homoeopathic doses! Why, you will have against you the _bureaux_, those sacrosanct _bureaux_ that have governed this country since bureaucracy has existed, and they will cram more than one Warcolier down your throat, I warn you." "Yes, if I allow it," said Vaudrey haughtily. "Eh! my poor friend, you have already allowed it," said the veteran. He had risen, Vaudrey had taken his hat, and he said to the minister, leaning on his arm, with gentle familiarity, as he led him to the door: "Power is like a kite, but there is always some rascal who holds the thread." "Come, come," said Vaudrey, "you are a pessimist!" "I confess that Schopenhauer is not unpleasant to me--sometimes." Thereupon they separated, after a cordial grasp of the hand, and Denis Ramel resumed his pipe and his seat at the window corner, while the minister carried away from this interview, as if he had not already been in the habit of a frank interchange of opinions, an agreeable though perhaps anxious impression. He felt the need of _mentally digesting_ this conversation: the idea of going back, on this beautiful February day, to his official apartments did not enter his mind. He was overcome by a springtime hunger. "To the Bois! Around the Lake!" he said to the coachman, as he re-entered his carriage. The air was as balmy as on an afternoon in May. Vaudrey lowered the carriage window to breathe freely. This exterior boulevard that he rolled along was full of merry pedestrians. One would have thought it was a Sunday afternoon. Old people, sitting on benches, were enjoying the early sun. Sulpice looked at them, his brain busy with Ramel's warnings. He had just called him a pessimist, but inwardly he acknowledged that the old stager, who had remained a philosopher, spoke the truth. Woman! Why had Ramel spoken to him of woman? This half-disquieting thought speedily left Sulpice, attracted as he was by the joyous movement, the delight of the eyes which presented itself to his view.