"Ah! certainly; you are never in the way."
"In that respect, Madame," said Hamilton, taking snuff, and bowing very low, "in that respect, I must strongly remind you of your excellent husband."
"Fie!" cried Madame de Cornuel; then, turning to me, she said, "Ah! Monsieur, if you /could/ have come to Paris some years ago, you would have been enchanted with us: we are sadly changed. Imagine the fine old King thinkinj it wicked not to hear plays, but to hear /players/ act them, and so making the royal family a company of comedians. /Mon Dieu!/ how villanously they perform! but do you know why I wished to be introduced to you?"
"Yes! in order to have a new listener: old listeners must be almost as tedious as old news."
"Very shrewdly said, and not far from the truth. The fact is, that I wanted to talk about all these fine people present to some one for whose ear my anecdotes would have the charm of novelty. Let us begin with Louis Armand, Prince of Conti; you see him."
"What, that short-sighted, stout, and rather handsome man, with a cast of countenance somewhat like the pictures of Henri Quatre, who is laughing so merrily?"
"/O Ciel/! how droll! No! that handsome man is no less a person than the Duc d'Orleans. You see a little ugly thing like an anatomized ape,—there, see,—he has just thrown down a chair, and, in stooping to pick it up, has almost fallen over the Dutch ambassadress,—that is Louis Armand, Prince of Conti. Do you know what the Duc d'Orleans said to him the other day? '/Mon bon ami/,' he said, pointing to the prince's limbs (did you ever see such limbs out of a menagerie, by the by?) '/mon bon ami/, it is a fine thing for you that the Psalmist has assured us "that the Lord delighteth not in any man's legs."' Nay, don't laugh, it is quite true!"
It was now for Count Hamilton to take up the ball of satire; he was not a whit more merciful than the kind Madame de Cornuel. "The Prince," said he, "has so exquisite an awkwardness that, whenever the King hears a noise, and inquires the cause, the invariable answer is that 'the Prince of Conti has just tumbled down'! But, tell me, what do you think of Madame d'Aumont? She is in the English headdress, and looks /triste a la mort/."
"She is rather pretty, to my taste."
"Yes," cried Madame de Cornuel, interrupting the gentle Antoine (it did one's heart good to see how strenuously each of them tried to talk more scandal than the other), "yes, she is thought very pretty; but I think her very like a /fricandeau/,—white, soft, and insipid. She is always in tears," added the good-natured Cornuel, "after her prayers, both at morning and evening. I asked why; and she answered, pretty simpleton, that she was always forced to pray to be made good, and she feared Heaven would take her at her word! However, she has many worshippers, and they call her the evening star."