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CHAPTER V.
A WAVERING ALLY
During this terribly historical morning of the 4th of December, a day the
master was closely observed by his satellites, Louis Bonaparte had shut
himself up, but in doing so he betrayed himself. A man who shuts himself
up meditates, and for such men to meditate is to premeditate. What could
be the premeditation of Louis Bonaparte? What was working in his mind.
Questions which all asked themselves, two persons excepted,--Morny, the
man of thought; Saint-Arnaud, the man of action.
Louis Bonaparte claimed, justly, a knowledge of men. He prided himself
upon it, and from a certain point of view he was right. Others have the
power of divination; he had the faculty of scent. It is brute-like, but
trustworthy.
He had assuredly not been mistaken in Maupas. To pick the lock of the Law
he needed a skeleton key. He took Maupas. Nor could any burglar's
implement have answered better in the lock of the Constitution than
Maupas. Neither was he mistaken in Q.B. He saw at once that this serious
man had in him the necessary composite qualities of a rascal. And in
fact, Q.B., after having voted and signed the Deposition at the Mairie of
the Tenth Arrondissement, became one of the three reporters of the Joint
Commissions; and his share in the abominable total recorded by history
amounts to sixteen hundred and thirty four victims.
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