The law, finance, Italy, the Colonies, Holland, all these things demand drawers of their own.

In these days, Monsieur de Laval, France asks something more of its ruler than that he should carry eight yards of ermine with dignity, or ride after a stag in the forest of Fontainebleau.' I thought of the helpless, gentle, pompous Louis whom my father had once taken me to visit, and I understood that France, after her convulsions and her sufferings, did indeed require another and a stronger head.
'Do you not think so, Monsieur de Laval ?' asked the Emperor.

He had halted for a moment by the fire, and was grinding his dainty gold-buckled shoe into one of the burning logs.
'You have come to a very wise decision,' said he when I had answered his question.

'But you have always been of this way of thinking, have you not?
Is it not true that you once defended me when some young Englishman was drinking toasts to my downfall at an inn in this village in which you lived ?' I remembered the incident, although I could not imagine how it had reached his ears.
'Why should you have done this ?' 'I did it on impulse, Sire.' 'On impulse!' he cried, in a tone of contempt.

'I do not know what people mean when they say that they do things upon impulse.
In Charenton things are doubtless done upon impulse, but not amongst sane people.