bellious; but not without
great firmness and great valour on my part, and some assistance
(however tardy) on the part of my allies. Conquerors must conciliate:
fatherly kings must offer digestible spoon-meat to their
ill-conditioned children. There would be sad screaming and kicking
were I to swaddle mine in stone-work. No, M. Talleyrand; if ever Paris
is surrounded by fortifications to coerce the populace, it must be the
work of some democrat, some aspirant to supreme power, who resolves to
maintain it, exercising a domination too hazardous for legitimacy. I
will only scrape from the chambers the effervescence of superficial
letters and corrosive law.

_Talleyrand._ Sire! under all their governments the good people of
Paris have submitted to the _octroi_. Now, all complaints, physical or
political, arise from the stomach. Were it decorous in a subject to
ask a question (however humbly) of his king, I would beg permission to
inquire of your majesty, in your wisdom, whether a bar across the
shoulders is less endurable than a bar across the palate. Sire! the
French can bear anything now they have the honour of bowing before
your majesty.

_Louis._ The compliment is in a slight degree (a _very_ slight degree)
ambiguous, and (accept in good part my criticism, M. Talleyrand) not
turned with your usual grace.

Announce it as my will and pleasure that the Duc de Blacas do
superintend the debarkation of the pheasants; and I pray God, M. de
Talleyrand, to have you in His holy keeping.

OLIVER CROMWELL AND SIR OLIVER CROMWELL

_Sir Oliver._ How many saints and Sions dost carry under thy cloak,
lad? Ay, what dost groan at? What art about to be delivered of? Troth,
it must be a vast and oddly-shapen piece of roguery which findeth no
issue at such capacious quarters. I never thought to see thy face
again. Prithee what, in God's name, hath brought thee to Ramsey, fair
Master Oliver?

_Oliver._ In His name verily I come, and upon His errand; and the love
and duty I bear unto my godfather and uncle have added wings, in a
sort, unto my zeal.

_Sir Oliver._ Take 'em off thy zeal and dust thy conscience with 'em.
I have heard an account of a saint, one Phil Neri, who in the midst of
his devotions was lifted up several yards from the ground. Now I do
suspect, Nol, thou wilt finish by being a saint of his order; and
nobody will promise or wish thee the luck to come down on thy feet
again, as he did. So! because a rabble of