furies of Hades lent her their
tongues, she could not have been more eloquent. It would have been a
very pleasant scene if one had not been a partner in it. The old Abbe,
with his keen, astute marked face, struggling between surprise, fear,
the sense of the ridiculous, and the certainty of losing his mistress;
the lady, foaming at the mouth, and shaking her clenched hand most
menacingly at her traducer; myself endeavouring to pacify, and acting,
as one does at such moments, mechanically, though one flatters one's
self afterwards that one acted solely from wisdom.

But the Abbe's mistress was by no means content with vindicating
herself: she retaliated, and gave so minute a description of the Abbe's
own qualities and graces, coupled with so any pleasing illustrations,
that in a very little time his coolness forsook him, and he grew in as
great a rage as herself. At last she flew out of the room. The Abbe,
trembling with passion, shook me most cordially by the hand, grinned
from ear to ear, said it was a capital joke, wished me good-by as if he
loved me better than his eyes, and left the house my most irreconcilable
and bitter foe!

How could it be otherwise? The rivalship the Abbe might have forgiven;
such things happened every day to him: but the having been made so
egregiously ridiculous the Abbe could not forgive; and the Abbe's was
a critical age for jesting on these matters, sixty or so. And then such
unpalatable sarcasms on his appearance! "'Tis all over in that quarter,"
said I to myself, "but we may find another," and I drove out that very
day to pay my respects to the Regent.

What a pity it is that one's pride should so often be the bane of one's
wisdom. Ah! that one could be as good a man of the world in practice
as one is in theory! my master-stroke of policy at that moment would
evidently have been this: I should have gone to the Regent and made
out a story similar to the real one, but with this difference, all the
ridicule of the situation should have fallen upon me, and the
little Dubois should have been elevated on a pinnacle of respectable
appearances! This, as the Regent told the Abbe everything, would have
saved me. I saw the plan; but was too proud to adopt it; I followed
another course in my game: I threw away the knave, and played with the
king, _i.e._, with the Regent. After a little preliminary conversation,
I turned the conversation on the Abbe.

"Ah! the _scelerat_!" said Philip, smiling, "