“That is quite true,” assented Berthe, whose politics, of no absolute color, leaned towards Imperialism, partly because it was the established order of things, and partly because the court was pleasant and its hospitalities magnificent. “We are an unruly nation; but whatever one thinks of the Empire, it is ungrateful and unjust not to give the Empress credit at least for good intentions in this visit to Amiens. It was an act of heroic charity and courage, and that there was as much wisdom as charity in it is proved by the fact that the pestilence has decreased sensibly from the very day of her visit.” “O madame, madame!” protested the _crévé_ and the two deputies in chorus. “The bulletins of the last week are there to prove it,” affirmed Berthe. “Where were they fabricated?” demanded the Deputy de la Gauche. “Perhaps Monsieur de Taitout could tell us?” Monsieur de Taitout was Chef de Cabinet at the Ministry of the Interior. “They were issued at Amiens by the medical men of the hospitals and by the Commission of Public Health, I presume,” replied the ministerial functionary with repellent _hauteur_. “They had at least a roll of red ribbon apiece in return for their satisfactory bulletins!” pursued the Deputy de la Gauche, with supercilious irony. “You are evidently well informed, monsieur,” replied the Chef de l’Intérieur, provoked by the persiflage; and darting a glance of peculiar meaning at the deputy, “We may infer that you are in the confidence of the Minister of Police?” The deputy bit his lip and reddened, while a suppressed titter ran through the company. This suspicion of complicity with the police, which the established system of compression and its inevitable consequence, espionage, engendered too readily, was apt to fall sometimes on the most unlikely subjects; in the present instance, however, it was all the more mortifying because public rumor had paved the way for credulity by ascribing the violent antagonism of the Deputy de la Gauche to the fact of his having been disappointed in obtaining a prefecture under the existing government. But Berthe, though she disliked and mistrusted him, was annoyed that he should be made uncomfortable in her _salon_. She disapproved of the turn the conversation was taking, and by way of diverting it, without breaking off too precipitately from the subject under discussion, she said, addressing an academician who had just joined the circle: “Is it not quite possible, admitting panic to be the first condition of contagion, that the presence of the Empress in the midst of the sick and the dying may have had such an effect on the _morale_ of the people as could sufficiently explain the immediate decrease in the number of deaths? Instruct us, Monsieur le Philosophe!”