Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/278

268 mortification, which, however, did not appear to spoil his enjoyment of his grandmother's delicate preserves. "The truth is, I am ashamed of Paris. I am heartily glad I was born in the provinces. The Parisians have no faith, no constancy, no loyalty. Would you believe it?—nay, I suppose you have heard it already, for ill news travels fast—they have dragged down the Emperor's statue from the top of the column in the Place Vendôme; they have loaded it with the vilest of insults, covered it with a sheet, put a rope round its neck—I know not what besides."

"Perhaps the conquerors desired its removal," suggested Madame de Talmont.

"Quite the reverse. The whole column would have shared the fate of the statue, but for a placard announcing that the Allies had taken it under their protection. The conduct of the mob has been unutterably base; and no whit better are the fine gentlemen of Paris, while the fine ladies are infinitely worse."

"Take care what you say, my dear grandson," spoke Madame de Salgues' correct, quiet voice. "I could wish to see you more chivalrous."

"Chivalry would be wasted upon ladies who demean themselves so far as to beg the gentlemen of the Emperor of Russia's suite to take them up on their horses, only that they may catch a glimpse of him!"

Here Clémence interposed. "The ladies of Paris may not be very dignified," she said, "but at least they have not, like the mob, incurred the reproach of inconstancy. Perhaps we women are not always wise in our choice of an idol, or self-respecting in the incense we burn before it; but at least we seldom choose as the object of our idolatry a man capable of leaving those who fought and bled for him to perish unpitied in the snow, while he warmed himself at his fire in the Tuileries, saying, in the satisfaction of his heart, 'This is better than Moscow.'"