Hence a good deal of foolishness and a good many foolish
acts.

Beneath this lightness, however, there was an intention.
This giddiness was fraught with deep meaning. The brave
party that leads the Academy, for there are parties
everywhere, even at the Academy, hoped, public attention being
directed elsewhere, politics absorbing everything, to
juggle the seat of Chateaubriand pell-mell with the seat
of M. Vatout; two peas in the same goblet. In this way
the astonished public would turn round one fine morning
and simply see M. de Noailles in Chateaubriand's seat:
a small matter, a great lord in the place of a great writer!

Then, after a roar of laughter, everybody would go
about his business again, distractions would speedily come,
thanks to the veering of politics, and, as to the Academy,
oh! a duke and peer the more in it, a little more ridicule
upon it, what would that matter? It would go on just the
same!

Besides, M. de Noailles is a considerable personage.
Bearing a great name, being lofty of manner, enjoying
an immense fortune, of certain political weight under
Louis Philippe, accepted by the Conservatives although,
or because, a Legitimist, reading speeches that were
listened to, he occupied an important place in the Chamber
of Peers; which proves that the Chamber of Peers occupied
an unimportant place in the country.