Chapter I: WAS sitting at dinner beside a man who asked me if the lady opposite

him was the wife of the gentleman at her side. I had noticed that the latter had not exchanged a word with his neighbour, so I replied: “He either does not know her or else she _is_ his wife.”

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LORD BOLINGBROKE gave Louis XIV. a thousand proofs of affectionate attention during a very dangerous illness. The king with some astonishment remarked: “I am the more touched by it because you English do not love kings.” “Sire,” replied Bolingbroke, “we are like those husbands who, having no love for their own wives, are only the more eager to please those of their neighbours.”

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TO turn a widow from the idea of marrying again, one of her friends remarked to her: “Don’t you see that it is a very fine thing to bear the name of a man who can no longer make a fool of himself?”

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THE sincerest of affections lays the soul open to petty passions. Marriage makes your soul liable to your wife’s petty passions; also, ambition, vanity, and the like.

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LA GABRIELLI, a celebrated singer, having asked 5,000 ducats from the Empress of Russia as her fee for singing at St. Petersburg for two months, the latter replied: “I pay none of my field marshals on that scale.” “In that case,” said La Gabrielli, “Your Majesty has only to make your field marshals sing.” The Empress paid the 5,000 ducats without further demur.

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A PRINT-SELLER asked, on June 25th, a high price for a portrait of Madame Lamotte, who had been flogged and branded on the 21st, giving as his reason that it was a proof before letters.

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AN entertainment manager was asking M. de Villars to waive the right of free admission for the king’s pages. “You must observe, my lord,” he said, “that several pages make a volume.”

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MARSHALL DE BIRON had a very dangerous illness; he wished to confess himself, and said before several of his friends: “What I owe to God, what I owe to the king, what I owe to the State--” “Hush, hush,” interrupted one of his friends, “you will die insolvent.”

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SOME young courtiers were supping with M. de Conflans. The first song of the evening was broad but not too improper. Immediately thereafter, however, M. de Fronsac rose and sang some abominable couplets which amazed the company, gay as it was. There was a dead silence, broken by M. de Conflans, who observed: “Fronsac, you surprise me! There are ten bottles of champagne between that song and the first.”

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A WOMAN of ninety said to M. de Fontenelle, then ninety-five: “Death has forgotten us.” “Hush!” replied M. de Fontenelle, putting his finger to his lips.

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TO obtain dry weather, it was arranged to have a procession with the shrine of St. Geneviève. Scarcely had the cortege started, however, than it began to rain. On which the Bishop of Castres wittily remarked: “The saint is mistaken--she believes we are asking her for rain.”

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