As soon as the ladies understood that the whole scene was a conversation between the Queen and the lawyer, they had begun whispering. Indeed, I have spared the reader the exclamations and interruptions with which they broke into the lawyer's narrative. However, such phrases as, "What a deadly bore!" and "My dear, when will he have done?" reached my ear. When the stranger ceased speaking, the ladies were silent. Monsieur Bodard was asleep. The surgeon being half drunk, Lavoisier, Beaumarchais, and I alone had been listening; Monsieur de Calonne was playing with the lady at his side. At this moment the silence was almost solemn. The light of the tapers seemed to me to have a magical hue. A common sentiment linked us by mysterious bonds to this man who, to me, suggested the inexplicable effects of fanaticism. It needed nothing less than the deep hollow voice of Beaumarchais' neighbor to rouse us. "I too dreamed!" he exclaimed. I then looked more particularly at the surgeon, and felt an indescribable sentiment of horror. His earthy complexion, his features, large but vulgar, were the exact expression of what I must be allowed to call _la canaille_, the rough mob. A few specks of dull blue and black dotted his skin like spots of mud, and his eyes flashed with sinister fires. The face looked more ominous perhaps than it really was, because a powdered wig _à la frimas_ crowned his head with snow. "That man must have buried more than one patient," said I to my neighbor. "I would not trust my dog to his care," he replied. "I hate him involuntarily," said I. "I despise him," replied he. "And yet how unjust!" cried I. "Oh! bless me, by the day after to-morrow he may be as famous as Volange the actor," replied the stranger. Monsieur de Calonne pointed to the surgeon with a gesture that seemed to convey, "This fellow might amuse us." "And did you too dream of a Queen?" asked Beaumarchais. "No, I dreamed of a people," said he with emphasis, making us laugh. "I was attending a patient whose leg I was to amputate the next day----" "And you found a people in your patient's thigh?" asked Monsieur de Calonne. "Exactly so!" replied the surgeon. "Is not he amusing?" cried Madame de Genlis.