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You surely have not come to evangelise us?" said Mege. "No, I've come to see Monsieur Fonsegue on an urgent matter, about a poor fellow who cannot wait." "Fonsegue? I don't know if he has arrived. Wait a moment." And stopping a short, dark young fellow with a ferreting, mouse-like air, Mege said to him: "Massot, here's Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, who wants to speak to your governor at once."
And thereupon, like a man of a past age whom the present times distracted, he started on what had been his favourite subject of complaint ever since he had been retired from the service. "Here's an idea for an article if you want one," he said to Massot. "Although France may have a million soldiers she hasn't got an army.
Massot pointed to Barroux, the head of the Cabinet, who, though he was out of his element in the Department of Finances, had taken it simply because his generally recognised integrity was calculated to reassure public opinion after the Panama crisis.
And the beau monde rushed to see them at the houses of the bolder lady-entertainers, the eccentric and foreign ones like the Princess, who in order to draw society recoiled from no "attraction." But when Pierre had explained to little Massot that he was still running about on the same business, the journalist obligingly offered to pilot him.
Then she darted away to sell a packet of pins to an old lady, while the young man contented himself with remarking, in the voice of one who has no illusions left: "She's quite idiotic with her Chamber of Horrors!" Massot philosophically shrugged his shoulders. It was only natural that a woman should want to amuse herself.
However, although Vignon had not personally intervened in the debate, the whole of his group had voted against the ministry, with the result that the latter had merely secured a majority of two votes a mockery. "But in that case they will resign," said somebody to Massot. "Yes, so it's rumoured. But Barroux is very tenacious.
Amidst all his feverishness he had not thought of these difficulties. However, he was approaching the door on foot, asking himself how he might glide unperceived through the throng, when the sound of a merry voice made him turn: "What, Monsieur l'Abbe! Is it possible! So now I find you here!" It was little Massot who spoke.
And presently the Government was defeated, Vignon's resolution being adopted by a majority of twenty-five. Some portion of the Left had evidently joined hands with the Right and the Socialist group. A prolonged hubbub followed this result. "Well, so we are to have a Vignon Cabinet," said Massot, as he went off with Pierre and the General.
His scanty, straight, yellowish hair, his drooping moustaches, in fact the whole of his distracted countenance, expressed everlasting distress. "And Chaigneux, do you know him?" continued Massot, referring to the deputy in question. "No? Well, look at him and ask yourself if it isn't quite as natural that he, too, should have taken money. He came from Arras. He was a solicitor there.
"The devil!" muttered little Massot, "Chaigneux and Duthil look like whipped dogs. And see, there's nobody who is worth the governor. Just look at him, how superb he is, that Fonsegue! But good-by, I must now be off!"
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