Vague thoughts crossed
him of the Breton peasant's life of mechanical labor, without a wish
of any kind; he pictured him burdened with a family, tilling the soil,
living on buckwheat meal, drinking cider out of a pitcher, believing
in the Virgin and the King, taking the sacrament at Easter, dancing of
a Sunday on the green sward, and understanding never a word of the
rector's sermon. The actual scene that lay before him, the gilded
furniture, the courtesans, the feast itself, and the surrounding
splendors, seemed to catch him by the throat and made him cough.
"Do you wish for some asparagus?" the banker cried.
"_I wish for nothing_!" thundered Raphael.
"Bravo!" Taillefer exclaimed; "you understand your position; a fortune
confers the privilege of being impertinent. You are one of us.
Gentlemen, let us drink to the might of gold! M. Valentin here, six
times a millionaire, has become a power. He is a king, like all the
rich; everything is at his disposal, everything lies under his feet.
From this time forth the axiom that 'all Frenchmen are alike in the
eyes of the law,' is for him a fib at the head of the Constitutional
Charter. He is not going to obey the law--the law is going to obey
him. There are neither scaffolds nor executioners for millionaires.
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