"The simpletons--I can not blame them, so much the worse--the simpletons have turned the heads of the bigger simpletons who listened to them. There is nothing, in and of itself, so stupid as gunpowder; is there? Yet that does not prevent it from exploding. Well, these banqueters have played with gunpowder. The mine is about to explode, and it will blow up the throne of the Orleans dynasty." "You are joking, uncle. There are fifty thousand soldiers in the city. If the mob but raise a finger it will be mowed down like grass. Everybody is so completely at ease regarding the state of Paris that, despite the seeming commotion of yesterday, the troops have not even been furnished with passwords in the barracks." "Is that so? Well, so much the better!" put in the Cardinal, rubbing his hands. "If their government is seized with the vertigo, these Orleans will quickly vacate their seats for the Republic, and our turn will come all the sooner." At this point his Eminence was interrupted by two raps given at the door of the salon that communicated with the boudoir. Promptly upon the raps followed the following ditty, still to the tune of _La Rifla_, and sung by Pradeline in measured rhythm on the other side of the door: "To get out of this scrape-- I sorely need my cape, On this occa-si-on, Your bene-dic-ti-on. La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla!" "Oh, uncle!" said the colonel in anger, "Pay no attention, I beg you, to the insolence of that foolish little minx." And rising, the Count of Plouernel took from the sofa where they had lain since the previous evening the cape and hat of the brazen girl, rang the bell quickly, and, throwing the articles at the valet who answered the summons, said to him: "Deliver these traps to the hussy, and have her leave the house instantly." And then, returning to his Eminence, who had remained impassive, and was at the moment in the act of opening his snuff-box, he continued: "I assure you, uncle, that I am ashamed. But droll creatures like that respect nothing." "She has very well shaped limbs," mused the Cardinal, taking his snuff; "she is quite comely, the droll creature. Nevertheless, in the Fifteenth Century, we would have ordered her roasted alive like a little Jewess, in reward for such a joke. But patience. Oh, my friend, never--never before were our chances so favorable!" "Our chances favorable if the Orleans dynasty is chased away and the Republic is proclaimed?" The Cardinal again shrugged his shoulders and proceeded to explain: "Either one thing or the other will happen--either the Republic of the bare-footed mob will be anarchy, the dictatorship, emigration, pillage, paper money, the guillotine, and war with all Europe--and then the thing will last six months at the longest, and Henry V will be brought back triumphantly by the Holy Alliance; or, on the contrary, their Republic will be benign, stupid, legal and moderate with universal suffrage for its foundation--"