A certain odour of roast meats, passing off under the _bouquet_ of the freshly-decanted wines, told of a dinner just eaten, the dishes having been carried away.

The gentlemen had taken to cigars, and the perfume of finest Havana tobacco was mingling with the aroma of the fruit and flowers. Smoking, sipping, and chatting with light nonchalance, at times even flippantly, one could ill have guessed the subject of their conversation.

And yet it was of so grave and _secret_ a nature, that the butler and waiters had been ordered not to re-enter the room--the double door having been close-shut on their dismissal--while in the corridor outside a guard was kept by two soldiers in grenadier uniform.

The five men, thus cautious against being overheard, were the representatives of the Five Great Powers of Europe--England, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France.

They were not the ordinary ambassadors who meet to arrange some trivial diplomatic dispute, but plenipotentiaries with full power to shape the destinies of a continent.

And it was this that had brought together that five-cornered conclave, consisting of an English Lord, an Austrian Field-Marshal, a Russian Grand Duke, a distinguished Prussian diplomatist, and the President of France--host of the other four.

They were sitting in conspiracy against the peoples of Europe, set free by the late revolutions--with the design to plot their re-enslavement.

Their scheme of infamy had been maturely considered, and perfected before adjourning to the dinner-table.

There had been scarce any discussion; since, upon its main points, there was mutual accord.

Their after-dinner conversation was but a _resume_ of what had been resolved upon--hence, perhaps, the absence of that gravity befitting such weighty matter, and which had characterised their conference at an earlier hour.

They were now resting over their cigars and wines, jocularly agreeable, as a band of burglars, who have arranged all the preliminaries for the "cracking of a crib."

The English lord seemed especially in good humour with himself and all the others. Distinguished throughout his life for what some called an amiable levity, but others thought to be an unamiable heartlessness, he was in the element to delight him. Of origin not very noble, he had attained to the plenitude of power, and now saw himself one of five men entrusted with the affairs of the Great European Aristocracy, against the European people. He had been one of the principal plotters-- suggesting many points of the plan that had been agreed upon; and from this, as also the greatness of the nation he represented, was acknowledged as having a sort of tacit chairmanship over his fellow-conspirators.

The real presidency, however, was in the Prince-President--partly out of regard to his high position, and partly that he was the host.

After an hour or so passed in desultory conversation, the "man of a mission," standing with his back to the fire, with hands parting his coat tails--the habitual attitude of the Third Napoleon--took the cigar from between his teeth, and made _resume_ as follows:--

"Understood, then, that you, Prussia, send a force into Baden, sufficient to crush those pot-valiant German collegians, mad, no doubt, from drinking your villainous Rhine wine!"

"Mercy on Metternich, _cher President_. Think of Johanisberger!"

It was the facetious Englishman who was answerable for this.

"Ya, mein Prinz, ya," was the more serious response of the Prussian diplomatist. "Give 'em grape, instead of grapes," put in the punster.

"And you, Highness, bind Russia to do the same for these hog-drovers of the Hungarian Puszta?"

"Two hundred thousand men are ready to march down upon them," responded the Grand Duke.

"Take care you don't catch a Tartar, _mon cher altesse_!" cautioned the punning plenipotentiary.

"You're quite sure of Georgei, Marshal?" went on the President, addressing himself to the Austrian.

"Quite. He hates this Kossuth as the devil himself; and perhaps a little worse. He'd see him and his Honveds at the bottom of the Danube; and I've no doubt will hand them over, neck and crop, as soon as our Russian allies show themselves over the frontier."

"And a crop of necks you intend gathering, I presume?" said the heartless wit.

"_Tres bien_!" continued the President, without noticing the sallies of his old friend, the lord. "I, on my part, will take care of Italy. I think I can trust superstition to assist me in restoring poor old Pio Nono."

"Your own piety will be sufficient excuse for that, _mon Prince_. 'Tis a holy crusade, and who more fitted than you to undertake it? With Garibaldi for your Saladin, you will be called Louis of the Lion-heart!"

The gay viscount laughed at his own conceit; the others joining him in the cachinnation.

"Come, my lord!" jokingly rejoined the Prince-President, "it's not meet for you to be merry. John Bull has an easy part to play in this grand game!"

"Easy, you call it? He's got to provide the stakes--the monisch. And, after all, what does he gain by it?"

"What does he gain by it? _Pardieu_! You talk that way in memory of your late scare by the Chartists? _Foi d'honnete homme_! if I hadn't played special constable for him, you, _cher vicomte_, instead of being here as a plenipotentiary, might have been this day enjoying my hospitality as an exile!"

"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha--ha!"

Grave Sclave, and graver Teuton--Russia, Prussia, and Austria--took part in the laugh; all three delighted with this joke at the Englishman's expense.

But their _debonnaire_ fellow-conspirator felt no spite at his discomfiture; else he might have retorted by saying:

"But for John Bull, my dear Louis Napoleon, and that service you pretend to make light of, even the purple cloak of your great uncle, descending as if from the skies, and flouted in the eyes of France, might not have lifted you into the proud position you now hold--the chair of a President, perhaps to be yet transformed into the throne of an Emperor!"

But the Englishman said naught of this. He was too much interested in the hoped-for transformation to make light of it just then; and instead of giving rejoinder, he laughed loud as any of them.

A few more glasses of Moet and Madeira, with a "tip" of Tokay to accommodate the Austrian Field-Marshal, another regalia smoked amidst more of the same kind of _persiflage_, and the party separated.

Two only remained--Napoleon and his English guest.

It is possible--and rather more than probable--that two greater _chicanes_ never sat together in the same room!

I anticipate the start which this statement will call forth--am prepared for the supercilious sneer. It needs experience, such as revolutionary leaders sometimes obtain, to credit the _scoundrelism_ of conspiring crowns; though ten minutes spent in listening to the conversation that followed would make converts of the most incredulous.

There was no lack of confidence between the two men. On the contrary, theirs was the thickness of thieves; and much in this light did they look upon one another.

But they were thieves on a grand scale, who had stolen from France one-half of its liberty, and were now plotting to deprive it of the other.

Touching glasses, they resumed discourse, the Prince speaking first:

"About this purple robe? What step should be taken? Until I've got that on my shoulders, I feel weak as a cat. The Assembly must be consulted about everything. Even this paltry affair of restoring the Pope will cost me a herculean effort."

The English plenipotentiary did not make immediate reply. Tearing a kid glove between his fingers, he sat reflecting--his very common face contorted with an expression that told of his being engaged in some perplexing calculation.

"You must make the Assembly more _tractable_," he at length replied, in a tone that showed the joking humour had gone out of him.

"True. But how is that to be done?"

"By weeding it."

"Weeding it?"

"Yes. You must get rid of the Blancs, Rollins, Barbes, and all that _canaille_."

"_Eh bien_! But how?"

"By disfranchising their _sans culottes_ constituency--the blouses."