Here was a universal exclamation. "Now I am easy," cried Chamfort, "if we don't perish until Laharpe is a Christian, we shall be immortal!"
"We, of the female sex," then said the Duchess de Grammont, "we are lucky that we shall be counted as nothing with the revolutions. When I say nothing, I do not mean to say as if we would not mingle ourselves a little into them; but it is assumed that nobody will, on that account, loath at us or at our sex."
Cazotte.—"Your sex will this time not protect you, and you may ever so much desire not to mingle into anything; you will be treated just like men, and no distinction will be made!"
Duchess.—"But what do you tell us here, M. Cazotte? You preach to us the end of the world!"
Cazotte.—"That I do not know; but what I do know, is, that you, Madame Duchess, will be led to the scaffold, you, and many other ladies, and on the public cart, with your hands tied on your back!"
Duchess.—"In this case, I hope I shall have a black trimmed coach?"
Cazotte.—"No, madam! Nobler ladies than you, shall, like you, be drawn on that same cart, with the hands tied on the back!"
Duchess.—"Nobler ladies? How? the princesses by birth?"
Cazotte.-"Nobler yet!"
Now was observed a visible excitement in the whole company, and the master of the table took on a dark appearance; they began to see that the joke had been carried too far.