"One is not a stateswoman and a daughter of kings for nothing," amended Colville, with his tolerant laugh; for he was always ready to make allowances. "Better, perhaps, that France should be left quiet, under the _régime_ she had accepted, than disturbed by the offer of another _régime_, which might be less acceptable. You always remind me--you, who deal with France--of a lion-tamer at a circus. You have a very slight control over your performing beasts. If they refuse to do the trick you propose, you do not press it, but pass on to another trick; and the bars of the cage always appear to the onlooker to be very inadequate. Perhaps it was better, Marquis, to let the Dauphin go; to pass him over, and proceed to the tricks suitable to the momentary humour of your wild animals." The Marquis de Gemosac gave a curt laugh, which thrilled with a note of that fearful joy known to those who seek to control the uncontrollable. "At that time," he admitted, "it might be so. But not now. At that time there lived Louis XVIII and Charles X, and his sons, the Duc d'Angoulême and the Duc de Berri, who might reasonably be expected to have sons in their turn. There were plenty of Bourbons, it seemed. And now--where are they? What is left of them?" He gave a nod of the head toward the sea that lay between him and Germany. "One old woman, over there, at Frohsdorf, the daughter of Marie Antoinette, awaiting the end of her bitter pilgrimage--and this Comte de Chambord. This man who will not when he may. No, my friend, it has never been so necessary to find Louis XVII as it is now. Necessary for France--for the whole world. This Prince President, this last offshoot of a pernicious republican growth, will drag us all in the mud if he gets his way with France. And those who have watched with seeing eyes have always known that such a time as the present must eventually come. For France will always be the victim of a clever adventurer. We have foreseen it, and for that reason we have treated as serious possibilities these false Dauphins who have sprung up like mushrooms all over Europe and even in America. And what have they proved? What have the Bourbons proved in frustrating their frauds? That the son of Louis XVI did not die in the Temple. That is all. And Madame herself has gathered further strength to her conviction that the little King was not buried in that forgotten corner of the graveyard of Sainte Marguérite. At the same time, she knows that none of these--neither Naundorff, nor Havergault, nor Bruneau, nor de Richemont, nor any other pretender--was her brother. No! The King, either because he did not know he was King, or because he had had enough of royalty, never came forward and never betrayed his whereabouts. He was to be sought; he is still to be sought. And it is now that he is wanted."