Republican banquet at the _Vendanges de Bourgogne_--The toasts--_To Louis-Philippe!_--Gathering of those who were decorated in July--Formation of the board--Protests--Fifty yards of ribbon--A dissentient--Contradiction in the _Moniteur_---Trial of Évariste Gallois--His examination--His acquittal Let us skip over the reception of M. Viennet into the Académie Française, which fact M. Viennet doubtless learnt from his porter, as he learned later, from the same porter, that he was made a peer of France, and let us return to our friends, acquitted amidst storms of applause and enthusiastically escorted to their homes on the night of 16 April. It was decided that we should give them a banquet by subscription. This was fixed for 9 May and took place at the _Vendanges de Bourgogne._ There were two hundred subscribers. It would have been difficult to find throughout the whole of Paris two hundred guests more hostile to the Government than were these who gathered together at five o'clock in the afternoon, in a long dining-room on the ground-floor looking out on the garden. I was placed between Raspail, who had just declined the cross, and an actor from the Théâtre-Français, who had come with me far less from political conviction than from curiosity. Marrast was the depositary of the official toasts which were to be offered, and it had been decided that none should be drunk but such as had been approved by the president. Things went smoothly enough throughout two-thirds of the dinner; but, at the popping of the bottles of champagne, which began to simulate a well-sustained discharge of musketry, spirits rose; the conversation, naturally of a purely political character, resolved itself into a most dangerous dialogue, and, in the midst of official toasts, there gradually slipped private toasts. The first illicit toast was offered to Raspail, because he had declined the Cross of the Légion d'Honneur. Fontan, who had just obtained it, took the matter personally, and began to entangle himself in a speech, the greater part of which never reached the ears of the audience. Poor Fontan had not the gift of speech and, luckily, the applause of his friends drowned the halting of his tongue. I had no intention of offering any toast: I do not like speaking in public unless I am carried away by some passion or other. However, shouts of "Dumas! Dumas! Dumas!" compelled me to raise my glass. I proposed a toast which would have seemed very mild, if, instead of coming before the others, it had come after. I had completely forgotten what the toast was, but the actor whom I mentioned just now came to dine with me a week ago and recalled it to me. It was: "To Art! inasmuch as the pen and the paint-brush contribute as efficaciously as the rifle and sword to that social regeneration to which we have dedicated our lives and for which cause we are ready to die!"