[Footnote: The company of actors at the hotel de Bourgogne were rivals to the troop of Molière; it appears, however, from contemporary authors, that the accusations brought by our author against them were well-founded.]
CAT. Indeed! that is one way of making an audience feel the beauties of any work; things are only prized when they are well set off.
MASC. What do you think of my top-knot, sword-knot, and rosettes? Do you find them harmonize with my coat?
[Footnote: In the original petite oie; this was first, the name given to the giblets of a goose, oie; next it came to mean all the accessories of dress, ribbons, laces, feathers, and other small ornaments. In one of the old translations of Molière petite oie is rendered by "muff," and Perdrigeon (see next note), I suppose, with a faint idea of perdrix, a partridge, by "bird of paradise feathers!!">[
CAT. Perfectly.
MASC. Do you think the ribbon well chosen?
MAD. Furiously well. It is real Perdrigeon.
[Footnote: Perdrigeon was the name of a fashionable linen-draper in
Paris at that time.]
MASC. What do you say of my rolls?
[Footnote: According to Ash's Dictionary, 1775, canons, are "cannions, a kind of boot hose, an ancient dress for the legs.">[