It was, had it been true that agricultural delights had really banished political cares from the mind of his hearer. But the citation appeared to the Marquis a possible trap, and he preferred not to comment on it. The old man, however, turned the page and proceeded along a further stretch of delicate ground.
“Listen to this, citizen. Would you not say that Virgil was writing of the Assembly and the émigrés?
‘Hic stupet attonitus rostris: hunc plausus hiantem
Per cuneos (geminatus enim plebisque patrumque)
Corripuit:’
—Vergniaud, or whom you like—
‘gaudent perfusi sanguine fratrum,’—
may it not come to that! But listen—this is Coblentz:
‘Exilioque demos et dulcia limina mutant,
Atque alio patriam quaerunt sub sole jacentem.’”