The two who escaped were much bruised.
A man and woman were found tied to one another and tied to a spar. They
seemed to have been killed by blows received from the rocks or from the
floating wreck.
In the evening Ampere read to us the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme.' His reading
is equal to any acting. It kept us all, for the first two acts, which are
the most comic, in one constant roar of laughter.
'The modern _nouveau riche,_ said Beaumont, 'has little resemblance to M.
Jourdain. He talks of his horses and his carriages, builds a great hotel,
and buys pictures. I have a neighbour of this kind; he drives
four-in-hand over the bad roads of La Sarthe, visits with one carriage
one day, and another the next. His jockey stands behind his cabriolet in
top-boots, and his coachman wears a grand fur coat in summer. His own
clothes are always new, sometimes in the most accurate type of a groom,
sometimes in that of a dandy. His talk is of steeple-chases.'
'And does he get on?' I asked.
'Not in the least,' answered Beaumont. 'In England a _nouveau riche_ can
get into Parliament, or help somebody else to get in, and political power
levels all distinctions.
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