when the Prince de Wissembourg, president of the committee of
subscribers, asked to see the statue, Wenceslas spoke the inevitable
byword of the idler, "I am just going to work on it," and he lulled
his dear Hortense with fallacious promises and the magnificent schemes
of the artist as he smokes. Hortense loved her poet more than ever;
she dreamed of a sublime statue of Marshal Montcornet. Montcornet
would be the embodied ideal of bravery, the type of the cavalry
officer, of courage _a la Murat_. Yes, yes; at the mere sight of that
statue all the Emperor's victories were to seem a foregone conclusion.
And then such workmanship! The pencil was accommodating and answered
to the word.

By way of a statue the result was a delightful little Wenceslas.

When the progress of affairs required that he should go to the studio
at le Gros-Caillou to mould the clay and set up the life-size model,
Steinbock found one day that the Prince's clock required his presence
in the workshop of Florent and Chanor, where the figures were being
finished; or, again, the light was gray and dull; to-day he had
business to do, to-morrow they had a family dinner, to say nothing of
indispositions of mind and body, and the days when he stayed at home
to toy with his adored wife.

Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg was obliged to be angry to get the
clay model finished; he declared that he must put the work into other
hands. It was only by dint of endless complaints and much strong
language that the committee of subscribers succeeded in seeing the
plaster-cast. Day after day Steinbock came home, evidently tired,
complaining of this "hodman's work" and his own physical weakness.
During that first year the household felt no pinch; the Countess