'
'And yet,' said he, clasping his hands together with intensity of
fervour, 'when all is rotten to the core, venal, unjust, tyrannical,
how endure without an endeavour at a remedy? Yet it may be that an
imposing attitude will prevail! Self-defence without a blow.'
It seemed as if such war as they were likely to wage could do no one
much damage, for they actually chose as their generalissimo that
ridiculous little sickly being, the Prince de Conty, who had
quarrelled with the Court about a cardinal's hat, and had run away
from his mother's apron string at St. Germain to his sister's at
Paris.
On recalling it, all was a mere farce together, and the people were
always stringing together lampoons in rhyme, and singing them in the
streets. One still rings in my head, about a dissolute impoverished
Marquis d'Elbeuf, one of the house of Lorraine, whom the prospect of
pay induced to offer his services to the Parliament.
'Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,
Qui n'avait aucun ressource,
Et qui ne mangeait que du boeuf.
Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,
A maintenant un habit neuf
Et quelques justes dans sa bourse.
Le pauvre Monseigneur d'Elbeuf,
Qui n'avait aucun ressource.'
There was more sense in taking the Duke of Bouillon, though he was
not his brother, M.
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