But he couldn't pass a law, and certainly continued to hold his present uncomfortable position by no will of his own.

But a Prime Minister cannot escape till he has succeeded in finding a successor; and though the successor be found and consents to make an attempt, the old unfortunate cannot be allowed to go free when that attempt is shown to be a failure.

He has not absolutely given up the keys of his boxes, and no one will take them from him.

Even a sovereign can abdicate; but the Prime Minister of a constitutional government is in bonds.

The reader may therefore understand that the Duchess was asking her husband what place among the political rulers of the country had been offered to him by the last aspirant to the leadership of the Government.
But the reader should understand more than this, and may perhaps do so, if he has ever seen those former chronicles to which allusion has been made.