“Such are the followers of the Bourbons: their best traits, their highest daring, their most long-suffering endurance, only elicited in the pursuit of some paltry object of personal ambition. They have tasted the cup of adversity, ay, drained it to the very dregs; they have seen carnage and bloodshed such as no war ever surpassed: and all they have learned by experience is, to wish for the long past days of royal tyranny and frivolity back again; to see a glittering swarm of debauchees fluttering around a sensualist king; and to watch the famished faces of the multitude, without a thought that the tiger is only waiting for his spring. As to a thought of true liberty, one single high and noble aspiration after freedom, they never dreamed of it. “You see, my friend, I have no desire to win you over to the Bourbon cause; neither, if I could, would I make you a Jacobin. But how is this? Can it really be so late? Come, we have no time to lose: it is not accounted good breeding to be late in a visit at the Faubourg.” CHAPTER XIX. THE TWO SOIREES Duchesne's story had unfortunately driven all memory of Bubbleton out of my head; and it was only as we entered the street where the Duchesse de Montserrat lived that I remembered my friend, and thought of asking the chevalier's advice about him. In a few words I explained so much of his character and situation as was necessary, and was going on to express my fears lest a temperament so unstable and uncertain should involve its possessor in much trouble, when Duchesne interrupted me by saying,-- “Be of courage on that head. Your friend, if the man you describe him, is the very person to baffle the police. They can see to any depth, if the water be only clear; muddy it, and it matters little how shallow it be. This Bubbleton might be of the greatest service just now; you must present me to him, Burke.” “Most willingly. But first promise that you will not involve my poor friend in the snares of any plot. Heaven knows, his own faculties are quite sufficient for his mystification.” “Plot! snares!--why, what are you thinking of? But come, this is our halting-place; and here we are, without my even having a moment to give you any account of my good aunt.” As he spoke he turned the handle of a large door, which led into a gloomy _porte cochère_, dimly illuminated by a single old-fashioned lantern. A fat, unwieldy-looking porter peeped at us from his den in the conciergerie; and then, having announced our approach by ringing a bell, he closed the shutter, and left us to find the way ourselves. Ascending the great spacious stair, the wall alongside which was covered with family portraits,--grim-looking heroes in mail, or prim dames with bouquets in their jewelled hands,--we reached a species of gallery, from which several doors led off. Here a servant, dressed in deep black, was standing to announce the visitors.