He confessed to himself that his brother was a skilful man.

According to him, that big, drowsy fellow always slept with one eye open, like a cat lying in wait before a mouse-hole.

And now here was Eugene spending entire evenings in the yellow drawing-room, and devoting himself to those same grotesque personages whom he, Aristide, had so mercilessly ridiculed.

When he discovered from the gossip of the town that his brother shook hands with Granoux and the marquis, he asked himself, with considerable anxiety, what was the meaning of it?
Could he himself have been deceived?
Had the Legitimists or the Orleanists really any chance of success?
The thought terrified him.

He lost his equilibrium, and, as frequently happens, he fell upon the Conservatives with increased rancour, as if to avenge his own blindness.
On the evening prior to the day when he stopped Eugene on the Cours Sauvaire, he had published, in the "Independant," a terrible article on the intrigues of the clergy, in response to a short paragraph from Vuillet, who had accused the Republicans of desiring to demolish the churches.