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Such was the story which, in the summer of 1840, in the house called La
Terrasse, before witnesses, among whom was Ferdinand B----, Marquis de la
L----, a companion during boyhood of the author of this book, was told by
M. Vieillard, an ironical Bonapartist, an arrant sceptic.
Besides Vieillard there was Vaudrey, whom Louis Bonaparte made a General
at the same time as Espinasse. In case of need a Colonel of Conspiracies
can become a General of Ambuscades.
There was Fialin,[14] the corporal who became a Duke.
There was Fleury, who was destined to the glory of travelling by the side
of the Czar on his buttocks.
There was Lacrosse, a Liberal turned Clerical, one of those Conservatives
who push order as far as the embalming, and preservation as far as the
mummy: later on a senator.
There was Larabit, a friend of Lacrosse, as much a domestic and not less
a senator.
There was Canon Coquereau, the "Abbé of La Belle-Poule." The answer is
known which he made to a princess who asked him, "What is the Elysée?" It
appears that one can say to a princess what one cannot say to a woman.
There was Hippolyte Fortoul, of the climbing genus, of the worth of a
Gustave Planche or of some Philarête Chasles, an ill-tempered writer who
had become Minister of the Marine, which caused Béranger to say, "This
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