room. Our place is in the anteroom--there we will wait until your
excellency will condescend to listen to us."

This humble language, this tremulous voice, that did not tally at
all with the air of a lion-hearted and outspoken popular leader,
which Mr. Wenzel had assumed in the street, struck terror and
consternation into the souls of the men who had so rashly followed
him into the palace.

The minister rose; his broad-shouldered figure loomed up proudly, a
sarcastic smile played on his angular and well-marked features; his
shaggy white eyebrows convulsively contracted up to this moment--the
only outward symptom of anger which Thugut, even under the most
provoking circumstances, ever exhibited--relaxed and became calm and
serene again, as he approached the men with slow and measured steps.

"Well, tell me now what you have come for? What can I do for you?"
asked Thugut, in the full consciousness of his power.

"We want to implore your excellency to give us peace. The poor
people--"

"Peace with whom?" calmly asked the minister.

"Peace with France, your excellency--peace with General Bonaparte,
who is said to be a magician, bewitching everybody, and capable of
conquering all countries by a glance, by a motion of his hands,
whenever he wishes to do so. If we do not make peace, he will
conquer Austria too, come to Vienna, and proclaim himself emperor;
whereupon he will dismiss our own wise and good ministers, and give