They sipped tea there, and uttered groans or cries of horror at the century, the charter, the Bonapartists, the prostitution of the blue ribbon, or the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII., according as the wind veered towards elegy or dithyrambs; and they spoke in low tones of the hopes which were presented by Monsieur, afterwards Charles X.
The songs of the fishwomen, in which Napoleon was called Nicolas, were received there with transports of joy.
Duchesses, the most delicate and charming women in the world, went into ecstasies over couplets like the following, addressed to "the federates":-- Refoncez dans vos culottes[20]
Le bout d' chemis' qui vous pend.
Qu'on n' dis' pas qu' les patriotes
Ont arbore l' drapeau blanc?
[20] Tuck into your trousers the shirt-tail that is hanging out. Let it not be said that patriots have hoisted the white flag.
There they amused themselves with puns which were considered terrible, with innocent plays upon words which they supposed to be venomous, with quatrains, with distiches even; thus, upon the Dessolles ministry, a moderate cabinet, of which MM.
Decazes and Deserre were members:--Pour raffermir le trone ebranle sur sa base,[21]
Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case.
[21] In order to re-establish the shaken throne firmly on its base, soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be changed.
Or they drew up a list of the chamber of peers, "an abominably Jacobin chamber," and from this list they combined alliances of names, in such a manner as to form, for example, phrases like the following: Damas.
Sabran.
Gouvion-Saint-Cyr.--All this was done merrily. In that society, they parodied the Revolution.
They used I know not what desires to give point to the same wrath in inverse sense. They sang their little Ca ira:-- Ah! ca ira ca ira ca ira!
Les Bonapartistes a la lanterne!
Songs are like the guillotine; they chop away indifferently, to-day this head, to-morrow that.
It is only a variation.
In the Fualdes affair, which belongs to this epoch, 1816, they took part for Bastide and Jausion, because Fualdes was "a Buonapartist." They designated the liberals as friends and brothers; this constituted the most deadly insult.
Like certain church towers, Madame de T.'s salon had two cocks. One of them was M. Gillenormand, the other was Comte de Lamothe-Valois, of whom it was whispered about, with a sort of respect: