“Is the King so unhappy that he casts melancholy around him?” he demanded.
“Sire!” muttered the gentlemen.
“You were very merry when the Queen and I came in. It is a bad thing for kings when no one dares laugh before them. I may say the converse: ‘Happy are the kings before whom laughter resounds.'”
“Sire,” returned one, “the subject is not one for a comic opera.”
“Of what were you talking?”
“Sire, I yield the guilty one to your Majesty,” said another, stepping forward.
“Oh, it is you, Editor Suleau,” said the King. “I have read the last number of your journal the Acts of the Apostles. Take care that you do not offend Master Populus.”
“I only said that our Revolution is going so slowly that it has to help on that in Brabant. We are lamenting the dulness of the session of the Assembly where they had to take up the motion of Dr. Guillotin upon—of all things—a new machine for public executions.”
“Are you making fun of Dr. Guillotin—a philanthropist? remember that I am one myself.”
“There are various kinds; the sort I approve of has a representative at the head of the French Nation—the one who abolished torture before trial: we venerate, nay, we love him.”