"You are amusing, Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, with your nature and your generation. You are, to my mind, like some good fellow who thinks he has surprised the King's secrets because he has seen the paintings which decorate the council chamber. In the same way that the secrets are to be found in the conversation of the King and his ministers, so is the fate of man in the thought which proceeds alike from the created and the Creator. All the rest is but folly and amusement, fit to divert the loungers, of whom one sees many in the Academies. Do not talk to me of nature, except of what one sees at the Petit Bacchus in the person of Catherine the lace-maker, who is plump and well-made.
"And you, mine host," added Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, "give me to drink, for I have a thirst on me, all the fault of Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, who thinks nature an atheist. And, by a thousand devils, so she is, and perforce must be, to some extent; and if at all times she declares the glory of God, it is without knowing it, for there is no knowledge, save in the mind of man, which alone proceeds from both the finite and the infinite. Give me to drink!"
My father poured out a brimming glass for my good master, Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, and for Monsieur Nicolas Cerise, and forced them to clink their glasses, which they did right heartily, for they were good fellows.
VI
THE NEW MINISTRY
r. Shippen, who practised the trade of a locksmith at Greenwich, dined every day, during his short stays in Paris, at the Sign of the Reine Pédauque, in the company of his landlord and of my good master, Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard.
That day, at dessert, having called for a bottle of wine as was his custom, lighted his pipe, and drawn from his pocket the London Gazette, he set himself peaceably to smoke, drink, and read; then folding his paper, and placing his pipe on the edge of the table, he said:
"Gentlemen, the Government is defeated."
"Oh!" said my good master, "it is of no consequence."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Shippen, "it is a matter of consequence, for the former ministry being Tory, the new one will be Whig, and moreover, everything that happens in England is of importance."