"Is Adolphe coming here?"
"Yes. We are going to see Sylla together."
"What! you are going to see that filth?"
"Filth, Sylla? Why, it is an enormous success!"
"Yes, the success of a wig."
"The success of a wig?" I echoed, not understanding. "Certainly! Take away from Sylla his Napoleonic locks, and the piece would never be played through."
"But surely M. de Jouy is a great poet?"
"In the provinces he may be thought great, my dear boy; but here we are in Paris, and we see things differently."
"If he is not a great poet, he is at least a man of infinite resource." "Well, perhaps he might have been thought clever under the Empire; but you see, my boy, the wit of 1809 is not the wit of 1822."
"Still, I thought that l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin was written under the Restoration."