Here he stopped and laid down the newspaper.  Trudaine took it from him, and shook his head forebodingly as he looked over the paragraph which had just been read.

“Bah!” cried Madame Danville.  “The People, indeed!  Let those four pieces of artillery be properly loaded, let the Swiss Guards do their duty, and we shall hear no more of the People!”

“I advise you not to be sure of that,” said her son, carelessly; “there are rather too many people in Paris for the Swiss Guards to shoot conveniently.  Don’t hold your head too aristocratically high, mother, till we are quite certain which way the wind really does blow.  Who knows if I may not have to bow just as low one of these days to King Mob as ever you courtesied in your youth to King Louis the Fifteenth?”

He laughed complacently as he ended, and opened his snuff-box.  His mother rose from her chair, her face crimson with indignation.

“I won’t hear you talk so—­it shocks, it horrifies me!” she exclaimed, with vehement gesticulation.  “No, no!  I decline to hear another word.  I decline to sit by patiently while my son, whom I love, jests at the most sacred principles, and sneers at the memory of an anointed king.  This is my reward, is it, for having yielded and having come here, against all the laws of etiquette, the night before the marriage?  I comply no longer; I resume my own will and my own way.  I order you, my son, to accompany me back to Rouen.  We are the bridegroom’s party, and we have no business overnight at the house of the bride.  You meet no more till you meet at the church.  Justin, my coach!  Lomaque, pick up my hood.  Monsieur Trudaine, thanks for your hospitality; I shall hope to return it with interest the first time you are in our neighborhood.  Mademoiselle, put on your best looks to-morrow, along with your wedding finery; remember that my son’s bride must do honor to my son’s taste.  Justin! my coach—­drone, vagabond, idiot, where is my coach?”

“My mother looks handsome when she is in a passion, does she not, Rose?” said Danville, quietly putting up his snuff-box as the old lady sailed out of the room.  “Why, you seem quite frightened, love,” he added, taking her hand with his easy, graceful air; “frightened, let me assure you, without the least cause.  My mother has but that one prejudice, and that one weak point, Rose.  You will find her a very dove for gentleness, as long as you do not wound her pride of caste.  Come, come, on this night, of all others, you must not send me away with such a face as that.”

He bent down and whispered to her a bridegroom’s compliment, which brought the blood back to her cheek in an instant.

“Ah, how she loves him—­how dearly she loves him!” thought her brother, watching her from his solitary corner of the room, and seeing the smile that brightened her blushing face when Danville kissed her hand at parting.