He started for Gaul, where he spent ten years with our ancestors.

During these ten years he sent over one hundred millions to Rome, repassed the Alps, crossed the Rubicon, marched straight to the Capitol, forced the gates of the Temple of Saturn, where the treasury was, seized sufficient for his private needs--and not for those of the Republic--three thousand pounds of gold in ingots; and died (he whom creditors twenty years earlier refused to allow to leave his little house in the Suburra) leaving two or three thousand sesterces per head to the citizens, ten or twelve millions to Calpurnia, and thirty or forty millions to Octavius; always the Morgan system, save that Morgan, I am sure, would die sooner than subvert to his personal needs either the silver of the Gauls or the gold of the capital.

Now let us spring over eighteen centuries and come to the General Buonaparte." And the young aristocrat, after the fashion of the enemies of the Conqueror of Italy, affected to emphasize the _u_, which Bonaparte had eliminated from his name, and the _e_, from which he had removed the accent.
This affectation seemed to irritate Roland intensely.

He made a movement as if to spring forward, but his companion stopped him.
"Let be," said he, "let be, Roland.

I am quite sure that citizen Barjols will not say the General Buonaparte, as he calls him, is a thief." "No, I will not say it; but there is an Italian proverb which says it for me." "What is the proverb ?" demanded the general in his companion's stead, fixing his calm, limpid eye upon the young noble.
"I give it in all its simplicity: 'Francesi non sono tutti ladroni, ma buona parte'; which means: 'All Frenchmen are not thieves, but--" "A good part are ?" concluded Roland.
"Yes, 'Buonaparte,'" replied Alfred de Barjols.
Scarcely had these insolent words left the young aristocrat's lips than the plate with which Roland was playing flew from his hands and struck De Barjols full in the face.