"Impossible!"
"Quite true."
"Some more wine, then. And the Pompadour?"
"Cold, but still powerful."
"I have heard," said M. de Montalvan, lowering his voice, "strange tales about the Parliament,—that it holds secret meetings, and that the court should keep itself prepared for some unexpected action."
"Bah!" said M. de Berniers, with a laugh, or rather a gentle inarticulate murmur of mockery; "put aside those notions, my dear M. de Montalvan. There is no power on earth can move the court of France."
"Good! And the theatres?"
"Intolerable. La Clairon has done something in a play by M. de Voltaire,-a play stolen from a Chinese tragedy, 'The Orphan of Tchao.' He calls it 'The Orphan of China.' It is dreary stuff. I wonder if our well-beloved king could not be induced to keep M. de Voltaire's plays in exile, as well as M. de Voltaire himself."
"Precisely," said M. de Montalvan. "Some more wine."
"And yet," said M. de Berniers, whose usually pale face was flushed by the repeated draughts of Burgundy with which he had found it necessary to stimulate himself to the effort of conversation, "and yet Mlle. de Terville, they say, will hear of nothing but M. de Voltaire. We shall quarrel finely about that, for one thing,"—and his eyes gleamed with what would have been amusement if they had been capable of so definite an expression.