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For weeks this mad fool was to be seen in the streets of Gorizia, parading himself like a peacock, with the grand-cross of the honorable order of the Emperor Napoleon, and, at the same time, uttering the most pointed and biting bon mots at the expense of his own decoration.
"You do not think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these jeux de mots: perhaps you do not admire wit at all?" "Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees it is fine; when it cools the wave it is refreshing; when it steals over flowers it is enchanting: but when, Monsieur Hamilton, it whistles through the key-hole it is unpleasant."
"What! do you play at crambo with me?" said the Duke. "I would have you to know that the common parish fool should be whipt, were he to attempt to pass pun or quodlibet as a genuine jest, even amongst ticket-porters and hackney chairmen." "And yet I have heard your Grace indulge in the jeu de mots," answered the attendant.
As early as 1849 he was reported to have said to a friend: "Quand je coup se fera je vous en previens, c'est moi qui le ferai."* Another of his mots has often been quoted and is most characteristic of the man: "S'il y a un coup de balai, je tacherai d'etre du cote du manche." * "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1865, vol. lvi, p. 501 et seq.
Although I cannot say, as your great king Louis XV. so justly remarked, "L'etat, c'est moi," yet I believe that I can entertain you comme il faut during your stay here. But all bon mots aside, would you care to join us this afternoon in a ride around the city?
His bons mots were celebrated. While directing a musical soirée when over eighty, a gentleman having taken a white hair from his shoulder, he said laughingly, "This hair must belong to some old fellow who passed near me."
This, according to the comparative value of assignats, is very trifling: but the people, who have so long been flattered with the ideas of partition and equality, and are now starving, consider it as a great deal, and much discontent is excited, which however evaporates, as usual, in the national talent for bon mots.
She loved to sell flowers at carnivals, in riding academies; and to sell champagne at large balls. She would think up her little bon mots beforehand, which on the morrow would be caught up by the whole town.
She loved to recite the bon mots of her idol, to discourse upon her astonishing degree of culture, to narrate how people refused on occasion to believe that she was the wife of Anson Merrill, even though she herself declared it those old chestnuts of the social world which must have had their origin in Egypt and Chaldea. Mrs.
"Not a bad attempt for a dull mind at all," the girl said laughingly, "don't forget it, and I'll give you a chance to use it again, when there's more appreciation in the room than there is just now." "Come, come, you little humbug, take off that gigantic sacque, and sit down here; upun my word I won't make any more of those nasty jeu de mots."
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