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When the late King, your father of glorious memory, did me the honour of conferring with me upon state affairs, he was in the habit of previously clearing the apartment of all buffoons and mountebanks." To the Princes of the Blood, the ministers of state, and the nobles of the Court, Sully that day added to the list of his enemies the boy-courtiers of the royal circle.
Velasquez being out of the question, why not Van Dyck! An excellent idea! Especially when instead of dwarfs, buffoons, and idiots, the English Court contained some exceedingly fine material besides the royal family for the artist to exercise his talent upon.
We thought that a great blow was inflicted on the republic when the Campanian district was released from the payment of taxes, in order to be given to the soldiery; but you have divided it among your partners in drunkenness and gambling. I tell you, O conscript fathers, that a lot of buffoons and actresses have been settled in the district of Campania.
But his dilettantism liked nothing better than those sudden leaps from society, and M. Egiste Brancadori, who kept the Marzocco, was one of those unconscious buffoons of whom he was continually in search in real life, one of those whom he called his "Thebans", in reference to King Lear.
It does not appear that one of the flatterers or buffoons whom he had enriched out of the plunder of his victims came to comfort him in the day of trouble. But he was not left in utter solitude. John Tutchin, whom he had sentenced to be flogged every fortnight for seven years, made his way into the Tower, and presented himself before the fallen oppressor.
"But who is to guarantee me that this pretended Baron de Sigognac, who actually appears on the stage before the public with a company of low buffoons as one of themselves, is not a vulgar, intriguing rascal, usurping an honourable name, in the hope of obtaining the honour of crossing swords with the Duke of Vallombreuse?"
Guillaume Rousseau, Emperor of the Empire of Galilee, marched majestically in his robe of purple, spotted with wine, preceded by buffoons wrestling and executing military dances; surrounded by his macebearers, his pickpockets and clerks of the chamber of accounts.
But this profusion of blessings, instead of being attended with any beneficial effects, produced nothing but a foolish taste for frivolous employment and sensuality; feasts, and dances, and music, and tricks of players, and exhibitions of buffoons, were more attended to than all the serious and important cares of life.
"Have these Romans no passion for shows?" asked Montreal; "if they could be more easily amused they would be more easily governed." "Oh, Rienzi, and such buffoons, amuse them. We do better, we terrify!" replied Stephen. "What sings the troubadour, Lord Adrian?" said Montreal.
"And yet," he continued, "if my name were De Wardes, and if I had the pliancy of character and strength of will of M. d'Artagnan, I should laugh, with my lips at least; I should convince other women that this perfidious girl, honored by the affection I have wasted on her, leaves me only one regret, that of having been abused and deceived by her seemingly modest and irreproachable conduct; a few might perhaps fawn on the king by jesting at my expense; I should put myself on the track of some of those buffoons; I should chastise a few of them, perhaps; the men would fear me, and by the time I had laid three dying or dead at my feet, I should be adored by the women.
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