N’est bon.
Qu’ apprete sans façon,
Mangeons a la gamelle.
Vive le son, vive le son,
Mangeons a la gamelle,
Vive le son du flacon!
When the priests and their friends had sung, laughed and drank for more than an hour, Mr. Varin rose and said: “The ladies must not be left alone all the evening. Will not our joy and happiness be doubled if they are pleased to share them with us?”
This proposition was received with applause, and we passed into the drawing-room, where the ladies awaited us.
Several pieces of music, well executed, gave new life to this part of the entertainment. This resource, however, was soon exhausted. Besides, some of the ladies could well see that their husbands were half drunk, and they felt ashamed. Madam Tache could not conceal the grief she felt, caused by what had happened to her dear Achilles. Had she some presentiment, as many persons have, of the tears which she was to shed one day on his account? Was the vision of a mutilated and bloody corpse—the corpse of her own drunken son fallen dead, under the blow of an assassin’s dagger, before her eyes?
Mr. Varin feared nothing more than an interruption in those hours of lively pleasure, of which his life was full, and which took place in his parsonage.