“I, who have not the honour to belong to the Ministry of Education,” replied the Duke with a feigned humility but with a vanity so intense that his lips could not refrain from curving in a smile, nor his eyes from casting round his audience a glance sparkling with joy, the ironical scorn in which made the poor historian blush, “I who have not the honour to belong to the Ministry of Education,” he repeated, relishing the sound of his words, “nor to the Volney Club (my only clubs are the Union and the Jockey⁠—you aren’t in the Jockey, I think, sir?” he asked the historian, who, blushing a still deeper red, scenting an insult and failing to understand it, began to tremble in every limb.) “I, who am not even invited to dine with M. Emile Ollivier, I must confess that I had never heard ‘mentality.’ I’m sure you’re in the same boat, Argencourt.

“You know,” he went on, “why they can’t produce the proofs of Dreyfus’s guilt. Apparently it’s because the War Minister’s wife was his mistress, that’s what people are saying.”