Evidently Scripture history was not taught carefully at the Ecole Polytechnique; still there was a strain of reason in the boy’s random talk. It was as true of the men before the Revolution as of those before the Flood, that “they ate, they drank, they planted, they builded,” heedless of the rising tide of divine and human wrath, until the torrent overflowed its bounds and swept them all away. Would their successors do the same? “As for me, _I_ am not one of your slight, inconstant time-servers, ever ready to swim with the current and to turn towards the rising sun,” Emile pursued, with a tragic air and a sublime confusion of metaphors. “I can tell you, very little more would make me go to Fontainebleau and lay my sword and my life at the feet of the Emperor, the great Napoleon, never more truly great than now, in the hour of his overthrow!” “My _dear_ boy!” Madame de Salgues interposed, in a voice of agony. “Let us suppose you do it,” said Clémence very quietly. “Even such assistance would scarcely, at this stage, restore his fallen fortunes; while you, on your part, would lose that mathematical prize for which you have been trying so hard.” Emile looked angry, and the heart of Clémence smote her. She thought of the glow of enthusiasm with which the young Russian said “_My Czar!_” and, after all, Emile’s hero-worship too was sincere in its way. “I think,” she resumed, “you have already discharged your debt of honour to Napoleon. If all who swore allegiance to him fought as you seem to have done at the Barrière du Trône, the Allies would not be in Paris now.” The concession soothed his wounded vanity, and he started a fresh subject. “You have no idea what the city looks like,” he said. “To walk down the Rue St. Honoré or along the Champs-Elysées is as good an amusement as going to the play. All sorts of strange beings, out of all nations under heaven, are riding about. Cossacks in sheep-skin jackets, with sandy-coloured, shaggy hair and beards, long lances, and queer little whips with plaited thongs hanging on their necks; Calmuck Tartars, with flat noses and little eyes; Bashkirs and Tungusians from Siberia, carrying bows and arrows. Strangest of all and best worth seeing are the Circassian nobles, in complete hauberks of steel and bright conical helmets. Then there are countless uniforms of a kind to which we are better accustomed, and some of them very splendid,--jewelled orders glittering on the breasts of the officers. All the Allies wear sprigs of box or elm in their caps to distinguish them.--Clémence, you should come into Paris and see the show. You really must do it. I will take care of you,” he added magnanimously, and not perhaps averse to the prestige it would give him amongst his school-fellows to be seen escorting his beautiful cousin.