The most trivial cause is sometimes sufficient to embroil ambassadors and to bring about war between two nations that could get along very well without it; and we too often see old friends suddenly become declared enemies.
In our day, politics sometimes produces such revolutions by its gentle and benignant influence. In the good old times, there were sometimes conspiracies of great personages, nobles, and persons in high station, but the people paid little heed to their plots. They went to see them hanged at Montfaucon, but they were not tempted to meddle with matters that led to such results. In those days, the workman thought of nothing but working to support his family, to save a marriage portion for his daughter, and to make sure of a home in his old age. That was the sum total of his politics; it made him neither ill, nor infuriate, nor insane, nor sophistical, nor evil-minded! It made him happy!
In that respect we may well regret the good old times.
Let us return to the two neighbors.
Lambourdin, the dealer in small wares, was by inclination, and, above all, by virtue of his trade, of the faction of the young nobles and the courtiers. When a noble personage entered his shop and made a purchase, Lambourdin puffed himself out like the frog in the fable, and never failed to proclaim from the housetops that he supplied monsieur le comte, or monsieur le marquis, or messieurs the pages attached to the court.
And so, when he learned the cause of the gathering, which he could see from his shop, the dealer in small wares hastened to the scene of the combat, fully disposed to take up the cudgels for the young nobles, to whom he was intensely anxious to display his entire devotion.
But the young men did not require the assistance of Master Lambourdin, and he had had no other opportunity to show his interest in their victory than by addressing an insulting remark or a threat to Cédrille from time to time.
But when Master Hugonnet besmeared a page so successfully with his lather, Lambourdin, far from finding that amusing, flew into a transport of rage, especially as the page who was so thoroughly lathered had bought two beautiful bows of ribbon at his shop that morning.
And so, as soon as the Black Chevalier's sword play had ceased, as soon as Bourriquet had trotted away with his travellers on his back, Lambourdin elbowed his way through the crowd to Master Hugonnet, and said, eying him with a furious expression:
"Do you know, Neighbor Hugonnet, that you have behaved very badly throughout this affair?"