han
independence.'

'I am told,' I said, 'that Falloux is now an ultra-Legitimist.'

'That is not true,' said Z. 'He is a Legitimist, but a liberal one. 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_.'"

'How did Falloux reply to it?' I asked.

'Feebly,' said ----. 'He muttered something about _l'ordre_ having no
firmer adherent than himself. In these formal audiences our great man has
the advantage. He has his _mot_ ready prepared, and you cannot discuss
with him.'

We talked of the French spoken by foreigners. 'The best,' said Circourt,
'is that of the Swedes and Russians, the worst that of the Germans.'

'Louis Philippe,' said Z., 'used to maintain that the best test of a
man's general talents was his power of speaking foreign languages. It was
an opinion that flattered his vanity, for he spoke like a native French,
Italian, English, and German.'

'It is scarcely possible,' said Tocqueville, 'for a man to be original in
any language but his own; in all others he is forced to say what he can,
and that is generally something that he recollects.'

'I was much struck by that,' said Z., 'when conversing with Narvaez. He
had been talking sensibly but rather dully in French, I begged him to
talk Spanish, which I understand though I cannot speak. The whole man was
changed. It was as if a curtain had been drawn