The Prince de Condé was one of the wittiest of Parisians. He had been criticising severely a tedious tragedy called Zenobia, the work of the Abbé d’Aubignac. “It is written strictly in accordance,” said one of the Abbe’s defenders, “with the rules of Aristotle” “I don’t blame the abbé,” replied Condé, “for having followed Aristotle, but I shall never forgive Aristotle for having caused him to write so tedious a piece.”
A Parisian grande dame, before whom a gentleman had just taken out a cigar, was asked whether she disliked the smell of tobacco. “I cannot say,” she replied. “No one has ever smoked in my presence.”
The French are perhaps less celebrated than of old for their politeness. It was a French preacher, however, who, in a sermon delivered before Louis XIV., observed deferentially “we are nearly all mortal”; and it was a French professor who, when Louis XVIII. had requested from him some lessons in chemistry, began his explanations by saying, “These two bodies, of opposite properties, will now have the honour of combining in presence of your Majesty.”
A Parisian, in the midst of a dissipated life, was prevailed upon to enter a monastery. Ere long he confessed to the Superior that in his moments of solitude he was constantly assailed by a desire to return to his former mode of existence. The Superior recommended him on these occasions to ring the great bell of the monastery, which would at once give him bodily exercise, distract him from evil thoughts, and be a signal to the other monks to pray for him. He rang, however, so frequently that the bell went on tolling all night, until at last representations on the subject were made from the entire neighbourhood.
A cuirassier, who had seen and admired Horace Vernet’s military pictures, called upon the great painter and asked how much he would charge him for his portrait. “How much are you prepared to pay?” asked Vernet. “I could go as high—as high as a franc and a half,” replied the soldier. “Done,” said Vernet, and in a few minutes he had made a rapid sketch of the warrior. As the cuirassier left the room he said to a comrade who had been waiting for him at the door, “I got it done for a franc and a half. But I am sorry, now, I did not bargain. He might have taken a franc.”
Sophie Arnould’s dog having fallen ill, the celebrated actress sent him for treatment to her friend Mesmer, inventor of the pretended science which bears his name. In a few days the German physician returned the dog with a letter certifying that it was quite well. The dog, however, died on the way home. “What a comfort it is,” said Sophie, on seeing the letter and the dead body, “to know that the poor animal died in good health.”
On seeing the dancer, Madeleine Guimard, who was thin even to scragginess, perform in a “pas de trois” with a robust male dancer leaping about on each side of her, Sophie Arnould said that it was like two dogs fighting for a bone.
A Parisian lady observed one day, in the presence of a man six feet high who greatly admired her, that she did not like tall men. He redoubled his attentions until, seeing her one day in rather a dreamy condition, he asked her what she was thinking about. “I am wondering how it is,” she replied, “that you seem to get smaller and smaller every day.”
The Abbé Fouquet was Mazarin’s spy, and he threw numberless Parisians into the Bastille. One man, whom he sent there one day, saw a large dog in the court-yard of the fortress-prison. “What has that dog done?” he asked, “to get in a place like this?” “He has probably bitten the Abbé Fouquet’s dog,” replied a veteran prisoner.
An amorous youth wished to send to the object of his affections a passionate, but at the[{27}] same time witty, epistle. After cudgelling his brains for some hours to no purpose he went to a bookseller’s, bought a “complete letter-writer,” and copied out what seemed to him the most suitable missive, which he duly despatched. The young lady replied to him next day as follows: “Turn to the next page and you will find my answer.”