"He was poor, and poverty among German officers, in either branch, is a bad thing. Our young friend did not penetrate the cause of this at first; for he had no intention of utilizing his papers, save to dream over them. The blood of his great forebear refused to let him bow under this unjust stroke. He sought a craft, an interesting one. The net again closed in on him. He began to grow desperate, and desperation was what Germany desired. Desperation would make a tool of the young fellow. But our young Napoleon was not without wit. He plotted, but so cleverly and secretly that never a hand could reach out to stay him. Germany finally offered him an immense bribe. He threw it back, for now he hated Germany more than he hated France. You wonder why he hated France? If France had not discarded her empire--I do not refer to the second empire--he would have been a great personage to-day. At least this must be one of his ideas.
"And there you are," abruptly. "Here we have a Napoleon, indeed with all the patience of his great forebear. If Germany had left him alone he would to-day have been a good citizen, who would never have permitted futile dreams to enter his head, and who would have contemplated his greatness with the smile of a philosopher. And who can say where this will end? It is pitiful."
"Pitiful?" repeated Breitmann. "Why that?" calmly.
M. Ferraud repressed the admiration in his eyes. It was a singular duel. "When we see a madman rushing blindly over a precipice it is a human instinct to reach out a hand to save him."
"But how do you know he is rushing blindly?" Breitmann smiled this question.
Hildegarde sent him a terrified glance. But for the stiff back of her chair she must have fallen.
M. Ferraud demolished an olive before he answered the question. "He has allied himself with some of the noblest houses in France; that is to say, with the most heartless spendthrifts in Europe. Napoleon IV? They are laughing behind his back this very minute. They are making a cat's-paw of his really magnificent fight for their own ignoble ends, the Orleanist party. To wreak petty vengeance on France, for which none of them has any love; to embroil the government and the army that they may tell of it in the boudoirs. This is the aim they have in view. What is it to them that they break a strong man's heart? What is it to them if he be given over to perpetual imprisonment? Did a Bourbon ever love France as a country? Has not France always represented to them a purse into which they might thrust their dishonest hands to pay for their base pleasures? Oh, beware of the conspirator whose sole portion in life is that of pleasure! I wish that I could see this young man and tell him all I know. If I could only warn him."