"It is merely a question of hastening the revolution a little," said M. de Tricotrin airily. "We must resolve the Council into a Committee of Safety, call a Convention Parliament, declare the throne vacant, and pass our Provisional Constitution. Nothing is simpler. On the whole, this new situation improves our prospects."
M. de Tricotrin ran off his programme as glibly as though a revolution were no more difficult than the arrangement of so many pleasant little parties, for which it was merely necessary to send out notes of invitation. Turbo was not so confident. General Dolabella was sounded. He had joined the triumvirate on the express understanding that nothing violent or precipitate or vulgar was to be done. He had been assured that the revolution should not so much as break the skin of the constitution; and he adhered. Now, to the Marquis's proposition, he offered an unqualified dissent.
"Create your committee," he said, "if you like. I have no objection; but I cannot answer for my party, nor for the army nor the Church, if the Convention Parliament meets a day sooner than the natural end of his majesty's reign; and I must insist that, before taking any steps whatever, some official effort be made to discover the fate of the King."
Being commander-in-chief the General had to be humoured. As a conspirator, he was not a success. He was full of vanity and nervousness; and every one knows that is a union which breeds nothing so much as obstruction. He himself pardonably mistook the two qualities which he brought to the revolutionary councils for self-reliance and vigilance. He was always making a fuss; and, in order to remove the obstacles which he raised with prodigal fertility, Turbo and the Marquis found it more and more necessary to let him into their confidence.
The idea of the conspirators was naturally enough a republic on the Roman lines. The classics were popular at the time, and the Dual Consulate seemed peculiarly adapted for tiding over the real question which was nearest their hearts. For, of course, both Turbo and the Marquis merely regarded a republic as the foundation for a tyranny which each of them intended for himself; and had not the General's vanity been fathomless, he would have been overwhelmed with the caresses which each of his colleagues showered upon him, with a view to obtaining an ally when the final struggle began.
