"So like my good fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the ability and vice which composed his character. "So like my good fortune, is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant fellow, who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, he is always so terribly afraid of intruding! and whenever I pick up a respectable personage without wit, or a wit without respectability, he attaches himself to me like a burr, and can't live a day without inquiring after my health."
Dubois smiled, bowed, but did not answer, and I saw that his look was bent darkly and keenly upon me.
"Well," said the Prince, "what think you of our opera, Count Devereux?
It beats your English one—eh?"
"Ah, certainly, Monseigneur; ours is but a reflection of yours."
"So says your friend, Milord Bolingbroke, a person who knows about operas almost as much as I do, which, vanity apart, is saying a great deal. I should like very well to visit England; what should I learn best there? In Spain (I shall always love Spain) I learned to cook."
"Monseigneur, I fear," answered I, smiling, "could obtain but little additional knowledge in that art in our barbarous country. A few rude and imperfect inventions have, indeed, of late years, astonished the cultivators of the science; but the night of ignorance rests still upon its main principles and leading truths. Perhaps, what Monseigneur would find best worth studying in England would be—the women."
"Ah, the women all over the world!" cried the Duke, laughing; "but I hear your /belles Anglaises/ are sentimental, and love /a l'Arcadienne/."
"It is true at present; but who shall say how far Monseigneur's example might enlighten them in a train of thought so erroneous?"
"True. Nothing like example, eh, Dubois? What would Philip of Orleans have been but for thee?"
"'L'exemple souvent n'est qu'un miroir trompeur;
Quelquefois l'un se brise ou l'autre s'est sauve,
Et par ou l'un perit, un autre est conserve,'"*