“That is a tenacious old grandfather,” said Beauchamp. “ Tenacem propositi virum. I think he must have made an agreement with death to outlive all his heirs, and he appears likely to succeed. He resembles the old Conventionalist of ’93, who said to Napoleon, in 1814, ‘You bend because your empire is a young stem, weakened by rapid growth. Take the Republic for a tutor; let us return with renewed strength to the battlefield, and I promise you 500,000 soldiers, another Marengo, and a second Austerlitz. Ideas do not become extinct, sire; they slumber sometimes, but only revive the stronger before they sleep entirely.’ ”

“Ideas and men appeared the same to him,” said Albert. “One thing only puzzles me, namely, how Franz d’Épinay will like a grandfather who cannot be separated from his wife. But where is Franz?”

“In the first carriage, with M. de Villefort, who considers him already as one of the family.”