"Yes," replied Charles, "but just see to what that leads; look at your father. You are sure that he is innocent, are you not?" "Of course I am!" "Well, he is in danger of being exiled, or even of being put to death, as you told me." "Pooh! Themistocles took part in the battles of Marathon and Salamis, and he died in exile. Exile, when it is undeserved, makes a hero of a general. When death strikes the innocent it makes of the hero a demigod. Wouldn't you like to be Phocion, even at the risk of having to drink hemlock like him?" "Hemlock for hemlock," replied Charles, "I would rather drink that of Socrates; he is the hero for me." "Ah! I don't dispute that! He began by being a soldier; at Potidæa he saved Alcibiades' life, and at Delium, that of Xenophon. Saving a man's life, Charles, was the act for which the Romans bestowed their most beautiful crown--the crown of oak." "To save the life of two men, and to make sixty thousand perish, as Phocion, of whom you spoke just now, did in the forty-five battles which he fought, do you think that would be sufficient compensation?" "Upon my word, yes, when those two men were Alcibiades and Xenophon." "I am not as ambitious as you," said Charles, with a sigh. "You want to be an Alexander, a Scipio, or a Cæsar, while I should be content to be, I don't say, a Virgil--there never will be but one Virgil--but a Horace, a Longinus, or even an Apuleius. You want a camp, an army, tents, horses, bright uniforms, drums, bugles, trumpets, military music, the cracking of rifles, the thunder of cannon; for me the _aurea mediocritas_ of the poet is enough--a little house full of friends, a great library full of books, a life work and dreams, the death of the righteous in the end, and God will have given me more than I dare to ask. Ah! if I only knew Greek!" "But what are you going to Pichegru for except to become his aide-de-camp some day." "No, to be his secretary now; there, my bag is strapped." "And my trunk is packed." Eugene went into Charles's room. "Ah!" said he, "you are fortunate to be able to limit your desires; you have at least some prospect of arriving at your goal, while I--" "Do you think then that my ambition is not as great as yours, my dear Eugene, and that it is less difficult to become a Diderot than a Maréchal de Saxe, a Voltaire than a Turenne? To be sure, I do not aspire to be either a Diderot or a Voltaire." "Nor I the Maréchal de Saxe." "Never mind, we can wish for it, anyway." At that moment Pierre Augereau's voice could be heard crying at the foot of the stairs: "Now then, young men, dinner is ready!" "Come, Monsieur Scholar!" said Eugene. "Come, Citizen General!" said Charles. By a rare coincidence each one had wished for that which God had destined him to have. One last word concerning the terrible events of that day; after which we will return to our young friends.