The things we do!

Musicians came and twanged guitars to her.
Her husband, entering her room, would fall over the sabre and spurs of
Count Almaviva from the boulevard, or Don Basilio with his great sombrero
and shoe-buckles. The old gentleman was breathless and bewildered in
following her through all her vagaries. He was of old France, she of new.
What did he know of the Ecole Romantique, and these jeunes gens with
their Marie Tudors and Tours de Nesle, and sanguineous histories of
queens who sewed their lovers into sacks, emperors who had interviews
with robber captains in Charlemagne's tomb, Buridans and Hernanis, and
stuff? Monsieur le Vicomte de Chateaubriand was a man of genius as a
writer, certainly immortal; and M. de Lamartine was a young man extremely
bien pensant, but, ma foi, give him Crebillon fils, or a bonne farce of
M. Vade to make laugh; for the great sentiments, for the beautiful style,
give him M. de Lormian (although Bonapartist) or the Abbe de Lille. And
for the new school! bah! these little Dumass, and Hugos, and Mussets,
what is all that? "M.


Pages:
737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761