"Dear uncle!" said Madame de Tecle, indicating Camors with a glance.

"I understand you, Elise," laughingly rejoined M. des Rameures, "but I
must beg Monsieur de Camors to believe that I do not in any case intend
to offend him. I shall also beg him to tolerate the monomania of an old
man, and some freedom of language with regard to the only subject which
makes him lose his sang froid."

"And what is that subject, Monsieur?" said Camors, with his habitual
captivating grace of manner.

"That subject, Monsieur, is the arrogant supremacy assumed by Paris over
all the rest of France. I have not put my foot in the place since 1825,
in order to testify the abhorrence with which it inspires me. You are an
educated, sensible young man, and, I trust, a good Frenchman. Very well!
Is it right, I ask, that Paris shall every morning send out to us our
ideas ready-made, and that all France shall become a mere humble, servile
faubourg to the capital? Do me the favor, I pray you, Monsieur, to
answer that?"

"There is doubtless, my dear sir," replied Camors, "some excess in this
extreme centralization of France; but all civilized countries must have
their capitals, and a head is just as necessary to a nation as to an
individual."

"Taking your own image, Monsieur, I shall turn it against you. Yes,
doubtless a head is as necessary to a nation as to an individual; if,
however, the head becomes monstrous and deformed, the seat of
intelligence will be turned into that of idiocy, and in place of a man of
intellect, you have a hydrocephalus. Pray give heed to what Monsieur the