He
would tolerate no Government, whatever were its other claims, that was
not constitutional.'
'Your Academic ceremonies,' I said 'seem to me not very well imagined.
There is something _fade_, almost ridiculous, in the literary minuet in
which the _recipiendaire_ and the receiver are trotted out to show their
paces to each other and to the Academy. The new member extolling the
predecessor of whom he is the unworthy successor, the old member lauding
his new colleague to his face, and assuring him that he, too, is one of
the ornaments of the Society.'
'Particularly,' said ----, 'when, as was the case the other day, it is
notorious that neither of them has any real respect for the idol which he
is forced to crown. Then the political innuendoes, the under-currents of
censure of the present conveyed in praise of the past, become tiresome
after we have listened to them for five years. We long to hear people
talk frankly and directly, instead of saying one thing for the mere
purpose of showing that they are thinking of another thing. The Emperor
revenged himself on Falloux by his antithesis: "_que le desordre les
avait uni, et que l'ordre les avait separe_.
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224