Now, for myself, whatever had been my original views on this question--and, as a fact, I should have preferred to see reform following the English model, the nobles' house remaining separate--I regarded the step, now it was taken, and legalised by the King, as irrevocable; and protest as useless. More, I could not help knowing that those who were moving the protest desired also to refuse all reform, to cling to all privileges, to balk all hopes of better government; hopes, which had been rising higher, day by day, since the elections, and which it might not now be so safe or so easy to balk. Without swallowing convictions, therefore, which were pretty well known, I could not see my way to supporting it. And I hesitated. "Well?" he said at last, finding me still silent. "I do not think that I can," I answered, flushing. "Can support it?" "No," I said. He laughed genially. "Pooh!" he said. "I think that you will. I want your promise, Vicomte. It is a small matter; a trifle, and of no importance; but we must be unanimous. That is the one thing necessary." I shook my head. We had both come to a halt under the trees, a little within the gates. His servant was leading the horses up and down the road. "Come," he persisted pleasantly: "you do not think that anything is going to come of this chaotic States General, which his Majesty was mad enough to let Neckar summon? They met on the 4th of May; this is the 17th of July; and to this date they have done nothing but wrangle! Nothing! Presently they will be dismissed, and there will be an end of it!" "Why protest, then?" I said rather feebly. "I will tell you, my friend," he answered, smiling indulgently and tapping his boot with his whip. "Have you heard the latest news?" "What is it?" I replied cautiously. "Then I will tell you if I have heard it." "The King has dismissed Neckar!" "No!" I cried, unable to hide my surprise. "Yes," he answered; "the banker is dismissed. In a week his States General or National Assembly, or whatever he pleases to call it, will go too, and we shall be where we were before. Only, in the meantime, and to strengthen the King in the wise course he is at last pursuing, we must show that we are alive. We must show our sympathy with him. We must act. We must protest." "But, M. le Marquis," I said, a little heated, perhaps, by the news, "are you sure that the people will quietly endure this? Never was so bitter a winter as last winter; never a worse harvest, or such pinching. On the top of these, their hopes have been raised, and their minds excited by the elections, and----