At this terrible rejoinder Napoleon half started up, crying out: “You are insolent! I ought--” then threw himself violently back in the bath with a force which sent a mass of perfumed water into Joseph’s flushed face, drenching him and Lucien, who had the wit to quote, in a theatrical tone, the words which Virgil put into the mouth of Neptune reproving the waves,-- “_Quos ego...._” Between the water and the wit the three Bonapartes recovered their tempers, while the valet who was present, overcome by fear, fainted and fell on the floor. Joseph went home to change his clothes, while Lucien remained to pass through another scene almost equally amusing. A long conversation followed after the First Consul’s toilet was finished. Napoleon spoke of St. Domingo. “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” said he. “I am to-day more sorry than I like to confess for the expedition to St. Domingo. Our national glory will never come from our marine.” He justified what he called, in jest at Lucien, his “Louisianicide,” by the same reasons he gave to Marbois and Talleyrand, but especially by the necessity of providing funds for the war not yet declared. Lucien combated his arguments as Joseph had done, until at last he reached the same point. “If, like Joseph, I thought that this alienation of Louisiana without the assent of the Chambers might be fatal to me,--to me alone,--I would consent to run all risks in order to prove the devotion you doubt; but it is really too unconstitutional and--” “Ah, indeed!” burst out Napoleon with another prolonged, forced laugh of derisive anger. “You lay it on handsomely! Unconstitutional is droll from you. Come now, let me alone! How have I hurt your Constitution? Answer!” Lucien replied that the intent to alienate any portion whatever of territory belonging to the Republic without the consent of the Chambers was an unconstitutional project. “In a word, the Constitution--” “Go about your business!” broke in the guardian of the Constitution and of the national territory. Then he quickly and vehemently went on: “Constitution! unconstitutional! republic! national sovereignty!--big words! great phrases! Do you think yourself still in the club of St. Maximin? We are no longer there, mind that! Ah, it becomes you well, Sir Knight of the Constitution, to talk so to me! You had not the same respect for the Chambers on the 18th Brumaire!” Nothing exasperated Lucien more than any allusion to the part he took in the _coup d’état_ of the 18th Brumaire, when he betrayed the Chamber over which he presided. He commanded himself for the moment; but when Napoleon went on to say with still more contempt, “I laugh at you and your national representation,” Lucien answered coldly, “I do not laugh at you, Citizen Consul, but I know well what I think about it.” “_Parbleu!_” said Napoleon, “I am curious to know what you think of me: say it, quick!”