If he persist in
being rabid he will be ordered by the Minster of War to reside in some
provincial town under the supervision of the police."
A few days later General D'Hubert was saying to his sister after the
first greetings had been got over:
"Ah, my dear Leonie! It seemed to me I couldn't get away from Paris
quick enough."
"Effect of love," she suggested with a malicious smile.
"And horror," added General D'Hubert with profound seriousness. "I have
nearly died there of... of nausea."
His face was contracted with disgust. And as his sister looked at him
attentively he continued:
"I have had to see Fouche. I have had an audience. I have been in his
cabinet. There remains with one, after the misfortune of having to
breathe the air of the same room with that man, a sense of diminished
dignity, the uneasy feeling of being not so clean after all as one hoped
one was.... But you can't understand."
She nodded quickly several times. She understood very well on the
contrary. She knew her brother thoroughly and liked him as he was.
Moreover, the scorn and loathing of mankind were the lot of the Jacobin
Fouche, who, exploiting for his own advantage every weakness, every
virtue, every generous illusion of mankind, made dupes of his whole
generation and died obscurely as Duke of Otranto.
"My dear Armand," she said compassionately, "what could you want from
that man?"
"Nothing less than a life," answered General D'Hubert.
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