"As I wrote you, Marchioness, I surrendered the command of my regiment because the King refused to authorize the severity which alone, to me, seems capable of re-establishing discipline among my soldiers and preventing them from becoming the allies of the revolution." "And yet you are astonished when I pronounce the name of the accomplice of the revolutionists! I denounce the King, Louis XVI." "You are a woman of genius, madam," acclaimed the Viscount of Mirabeau warmly. "You justly signalize one of the causes of the revolution. Honor to you, madam." "I have no right to these praises, Viscount. I am a woman whom God has dowered with some little good sense, that is all. I am a patrician and a Catholic." "Nevertheless, Madam Marchioness," interposed the Duke who had spoken before, "it seems to me hazardous to pretend that the King, our Sire, is a revolutionist. In truth, it is pursuing the metaphor to its extreme limits. I should hesitate to follow you upon that ground." Here the Marquis broke in again with his irrepressible laugh, saying: "On one side the revolutionary King--on the other the 'sovereign people.' What a comicality! What a mess!" Victoria continued: "King Louis XVI is the first, the most damnable of revolutionists. Neither grace nor pity for the guilty! What I say, I maintain; I shall prove it. I shall essay to rouse in you all remorse--for you represent here the nobility, the clergy, and the world of money, and you are nearly as responsible as the King. I shall soon make it clear to you." "By the life of God, Marchioness, I am of your opinion," echoed the Viscount of Mirabeau. "Six months ago the nobility should have saddled its horses, and, whether the King consented or no, ridden against the revolution and put every peasant to the saber." "Six months ago the curates should have stirred themselves, roused their parishes to the sound of the tocsin, and put arms into their hands. They also will have to enter the fight," quoth Abbot Morlet, speaking aloud for the first time since the beginning of the banquet. "We understand each other, Monsieur Abbot," answered Victoria; and then to Mirabeau: "We judge the situation alike, Monsieur Viscount--the moment calls for a general and armed uprising." "But we who are less keen-sighted," objected the Duke, "we confess the weakness of our prevision; we reject your conclusions." "We are the three ninnies--the Duke, the Cardinal and I," put in the Marquis, cracking another joke. "Decidedly," observed the Cardinal aside to himself. "I was the dupe of an accidental resemblance. This patrician Marchioness has nothing in common with the lovely nymph of the Dubois woman's lupanar."