His Excellency the Minister

Ideas sometimes float about in the air like the pollen of flowers. For years past I have been at work collecting notes for this book which I have decided to dedicate to you.

_And from the contrast between the shabby obsequies of the old journalist and the solemn pomp of that of the funeral service of the four days' minister came the idea of my book....

The financier might have related to Sulpice Vaudrey a description of a journey to Timbuctoo and have found him less amused and less interested than now. It was a world new and s...

Sabine waited nervously. The curtain had just fallen on the third act. The manager's box was empty. Guy would doubtless be obliged to rejoin Vaudrey, and neither the minister no...

Why? He loved his native province, the banks of the Isère, the healthy, poetic atmosphere hanging over the desert of the Chartreuse and the snows of the Grand-Som. A talented ma...

Guy de Lissac occupied a small summer-house forming a residence situated at the end of a court on Rue D'Aumale. He had given carte-blanche for the arrangement of this bachelor's...

He looked with a curiosity not unmixed with pain at that woman whom he had loved truly enough to suffer love's pangs,--the innocents say to die of it. He tried to find again in...

Marianne listened, but her mind was wandering far away. She was debating with herself as to when Monsieur de Rosas would appear on that narrow strip of waxed floor before her.

Vaudrey felt really much disturbed, he was attracted and half-angered by this pretty girl with dilating nostrils who calmly swallowed her glass of sherbet. He thought her at onc...

She had resumed her place on the divan, but Vaudrey had already forgiven her tête-à-tête with Rosas--and in truth, what had he to forgive?--This burning glance had effaced every...

"My dear friend, when a man feels sufficiently anxious, or sufficiently weak, or sufficiently smitten, whichever you please, to stake his life on the throw of the dice, he is pe...

He removed his hat and went straight toward the door, that was then opened to admit a pale-faced, lean man with long black whiskers that formed a sort of horsetail fringe to his...

At last! For an entire day he was released from the ordinary routine of his life; from the wrangling of the assembly, the hubbub of the corridors, the gossip of the lobbies, int...

He almost reproached himself for not having brought Adrienne. She would have been so happy for this advanced spring day. She required so little to make her smile: mere crumbs of...

To renounce everything was enough to banish all patience. Yesterday, on leaving Rosas, she believed herself to be withdrawn forever from the wretched Bohemian life she had so pa...

Kayser, whom he had once met at Marianne's, had answered such a question by remarking that his niece was a _sly puss_ who understood life thoroughly and would be sure to make he...

Then, after a slight toss of the head and still smiling, she opened one of the drawers of the small Inaltia cabinet and slipped into it the satin paper to which the minister had...

"That will be easy enough so long as you are popular and solid in Parliament; but on the day that it is clearly proved that such and such a future minister can make himself more...

"Not at all. I am considered to be ignorant--No, I have a plan to decorate in a uniform way, all the mayors' offices in Paris and I want to propose it to him--_The Modern Marria...

What could Marianne hope for? Again, she had no well-defined object; but she watched her opportunity, and since Vaudrey's power was enlarged, well, she was to profit by it. Clai...

Married! Duchess! and Duchesse de Rosas! At first she laughed. Duchess! I am asking a little from you! The mistress of Pierre Méran, the artist's drudge, the wretch who abducted...

For nearly half a century Prangins, the old political wheel-horse, had plotted and jockeyed in politics, set up and overthrown ministries, piled up review articles on newspaper...

Vaudrey could scarcely prevent himself from laughing hysterically, in spite of his ministerial dignity, and when he returned to Grenoble, his carriage full of the flowers that t...

The letter that she had torn up had been written by Rosas, and received by Uncle Kayser at his studio, whence he had forwarded it to his niece. The duke informed Marianne that h...

"I confess," Lissac replied, "that I should be the worst of ingrates if I did not forget many things in consideration of what I owe you, both in the present and in the past. You...

"It is rather too strong. What do you want?--It is not even moral, but it has _character!_ And in art, after the moral idea comes _character!_ Ah! bless me! character, that is s...

Adrienne's repressed grief had pained Lissac. While to the other guests she appeared to be only somewhat fatigued, to him the open wound and sorrow were visible. He plunged into...

"Who marries her! Then these creatures are married?--Ah! they are married--They are honored, too, are they not? And because they are more easy of approach, they are thought more...

The session of the Chamber was to furnish him the most cruel deception. Granet had most skilfully prepared his plan of attack. Vaudrey's ministry was threatened on all sides by...

That very evening Adrienne was to leave. He endeavored to dissuade her from her plan. She did not even reply to him. She stood looking at a crystal vase on the chimney-piece in...

Vaudrey, looking fatigued and abstracted, sat in his stall during the entr'acte. He looked unconsciously about the theatre and still felt surprised at not receiving salutations...

The future duchess showed that she was but little flattered by the girl's reflections. It was scarcely worth while not to put on airs even with servants, to meet such fools who...