The prefect, delighted with the compliment, drew aside his chair, and Madame was installed in the seat to his left, to the detriment of the person to whom that place of honor had been assigned. The two men accepted without objection the seats given to them, and were soon busy--M. de Lussac especially--in doing justice to the repast. The other guests followed their example, and for a time nothing broke the solemn silence which attends the beginning of a long-delayed and impatiently awaited dinner. Madame was the first to break that silence. Her adventurous spirit, like the petrel, was more at ease in a gale. "Well," she remarked, "I think our arrival must have interrupted the conversation. Nothing is so depressing as a silent dinner. I detest such dinners, my dear count; they are like those state functions at the Tuileries, where, they tell me, no one was allowed to speak unless the king had spoken. What were you all talking about before we came in?" "Dear cousin," said M. de Vouillé, "the prefect was kindly giving us the official details of that blundering affair at Marseille." "Blundering affair?" said the duchess. "That's what he called it." "And the words exactly describe the thing," said the functionary. "Can you conceive of an expedition of that character for which the arrangements were so carelessly made that it only required a sub-lieutenant of the 13th regiment to arrest one of the leaders of the outbreak and knock the whole affair in the head at once?" "But don't you know, Monsieur le préfet," said the duchess, in a melancholy tone, "in all great events there is a moment, a supreme moment, when the destinies of princes and empires are shaken like leaves in the wind? For example, when Napoleon at La Mure advanced to meet the soldiers who were sent against him, if a sub-lieutenant of any kind had taken him by the collar the return from Elba would have been nothing more than a _blundering affair_." There was silence after that, Madame having said the words in a grieved tone. She herself re-opened the matter. "And the Duchesse de Berry?" she said; "is it known what became of her?" "She returned on board of the 'Carlo Alberto.'" "Ah!" "It was the only sensible thing she could do, it seems to me," said the prefect. "You are quite right, monsieur," said the old gentleman, who had accompanied Madame, and who had not before spoken; "and if I had had the honor to be near her Highness and she had granted me some authority, I should have given her that advice." "No one was addressing you, my good husband," said the duchess. "I am speaking to the prefect, and I want to know if he is quite sure her Royal Highness has re-embarked?" "Madame," said the prefect, with one of those administrative gestures which admit of no contradiction, "the government is officially informed of it."